A Moral-less Story
by euromagpie
Summary: A civilian girl steals a ninja scroll and goes running around in the woods - what happens next will shock you! (very little Actual Sasuke. Kind of Body Swap. No pairings. I love Naruto and Sakura. OC.) It'll be fun, like a discount version of Naruto from the Poundshop.
1. Chapter 1

Above Konoha, the sun gave a half-hearted attempt at providing a sunny day; dark clouds stumbled across the sky, turning the warm air cold when they obscured the sun. Underfoot, gusts of wind blew around building corners, causing shop doors to bang and blowing away towels hung out over balconies to dry. Just as it kicked up dust in the busy town of Konoha, so did it blow around the green leaves in a secluded training ground just outside the village borders.

Kaishi made a clucking sound with her tongue as she shooed away the leaves that attached themselves to her forehead. She swore and blinked furiously as an off-balance insect flew straight into her eye. Eyes watering, the young girl continued slogging up the slope, past the gentle-flowing river, to where a clearing would soon open up in the trees. Her destination was an old training ground that was once used by the ninja of Konoha, as evidenced by the occasional kunai or shuriken she'd found, lost in the undergrowth. Nobody came there anymore, since the village council levelled new grounds for practicing that were bigger and better cared for; the leaves and grass and twigs that accumulated in this part of the woods created an irritating obstacle to quick manoeuvres.

Technically as a civilian, Kaishi wasn't supposed to be outside the village without having a written consent form from her parents, who had specifically forbidden her from hanging around where ninja worked, for her own safety. Not that she was particularly interested in ninja – they were more of a peripheral subject in her life, with no impact on her personal life – but the very fact that her family didn't expect her to come out her made the location so appealing. No matter where her mum sent her brothers to look for her, she could skip school here in peace.

Besides, today was a special day.

Kaishi patted the pocket of her puffy coat, feeling the cylindrical shape against her chest. Her heart beat fast, thrumming with the adrenaline that comes with, well, committing a crime. _Technically_. Technically…come on, nobody's even looked at the scroll for like, decades.

She'd first come across the scroll in the ninja library that morning. Not that civilians were supposed to be able to go into the ninja library – apparently it was filled with dangerous shit that civilians just _wouldn't understand_. Tch. No, she'd come across her ticket to knowledge quite accidentally, an access card she'd found on the street, probably dropped by a ninja cadet – what did they call them, genin? – without much experience as they raced across the rooftops. She'd thought that definitely it wouldn't work – she'd expected them to just _know_ that she wasn't supposed to have it, but Kaishi had given it a shot because let's face it; how many times would she get this chance? She'd gone for it, and despite thinking the subterfuge was written plain as day across her forehead, the sleepy chuunin at the front desk had simply taken a quick glance at the card before waving her through, his head quickly thumping back on his folded arms, followed swiftly by quiet snoring.

 _Is he even a ninja_? Kaishi had asked herself, baffled by his lax attitude. But then, she didn't know anything about his lifestyle. Maybe he'd just completed a daring, life-threatening mission…and gone straight to the library desk. Yeah, right. Whatever.

She wasn't about to look a gift-horse in the mouth though, and quickly slipped into the library; as soon as she was in, nobody seemed to pay her any attention. There were quite a few other patrons, sitting or standing, studying various tomes, scrolls and loose-leaf documents.

Kaishi had a deep appreciation for libraries. Well, for documents in particular. She was a dab hand at art if she did say so herself, and her appreciation for calligraphy and the written word led to her taking on a few odd jobs here and there writing up store-signs and so forth with her even hand. Her family assumed she'd go on to be an artist or something, and while she wasn't entirely opposed to the idea, it sounded like an awful lot of hard work for very little reward (especially since nobody could seem to quite agree on what 'art' really was – why drown yourself in such an unstable pool?).

Regardless of her personal prowess or lack thereof, she'd spent most of the day that she was supposed to be in school, browsing through manuals on ninjutsu, thick books on the history of clans, and meter-long scrolls on the politics of civilian-ninja relationships. Most of it went over her head, and as soon as words like 'bunshin' or 'kawarimi' started taking up half the text she just shook her head in confusion and returned them to their proper place. It was only when she started wandering towards the back of the library that things started getting interesting. The scrolls here seemed to emanate a restless energy – probably that ninjutsu chakra or whatever. Still, it drew her from one to another. She didn't dare touch them; she wasn't sure what would happen if she did, but she'd seen a lot of ninja nearly blow themselves sky-high when performing drunk jutsus in the middle of the street, so she wasn't about to risk it herself.

At least, that's what she'd been intending, until she'd been startled by a gruff order barked from behind her.

"Oi! You're not supposed to be here!"

Kaishi had startled.

Without realising how close she'd been standing to a shelf of cubby-holes, each containing their own yellowing scroll, she'd spun around, arms flailing in the panic of having been caught trespassing. Taking a step back, she'd tripped over her other foot and crashed backwards – although she'd managed to catch herself, it was too late for the bookshelf; with a timber-deep groan, the bookshelf toppled and started falling.

The shinobi who had startled her moved in a split-second, pushing her to the ground and standing over her as a cascade of paper and bamboo dowels rained down on them. Kaishi had shut her eyes tightly, waiting for the thundering to stop – the space was tight and cramped with the shinobi crouched over her and she felt her breaths start coming shorter and faster as the tumbling went on and on and on and-

"Are you okay?"

Kaishi hesitantly opened her eyes, only to realise the falling of the scrolls had stopped. A heavy grunt echoed from her protector, who straightened up. The low thud that followed indicated him straightening up and putting to rights the shelf that must have fallen on him. She scrambled up, registering the danger had passed, and her eyes widened as she took in the chaos she'd caused.

They'd been right at the back of the library so the noise might not have drawn that much attention, but Kaishi swallowed convulsively as she took in the sight of tens and tens of no doubt precious scrolls crumpled and unrolled on the library floor. She almost fainted as she caught sight of one that was ripped almost all the way through.

"Oh shit, I-" _I'm sorry_. She wanted to say it, she _was_ sorry, but she knew it wouldn't cut it. She'd done who knows how many yens worth of damage. Her parents would know about this. They'd have to pay.

"Fuck!" Before she could think it really through, panic caught a hold of her and she turned and _bolted_. Kaishi ignored the indignant 'HEY!' that chased after her, instead dashing through the jumble of shelves, past the library-goers and past the sleeping chuunin, now drooling on his paperwork. She ran out of the building and didn't stop until she turned the corner at least ten streets away from the ninja library, crouching down low into a ball in front of what looked like a dingy laundromat.

Well, she tried to curl into a ball. The curling itself was hindered by something round jabbing into her chest. It felt like…

 _Oh no_. Kaishi felt her heart fall, already knowing what had happened even as she pulled open her jacket to see what had stabbed her. Reluctantly, she pulled out a scroll.

A scroll.

That she'd _stolen_.

From the _ninja library_.

She was _so_ going to jail.

It must have slipped into her half-zipped jacket in the chaos of the falling shelf. And the section she was in looked important too. She almost didn't want to think about how much the scroll was worth. How important it was.

How dangerous.

She dropped the scroll as though burned, watching it warily as it rolled harmlessly across the street. It then sat there, metaphorically blinking at her with large, innocent eyes.

Well, it hadn't blown her up _yet_. It still _might_. It should be safe though if she just…didn't open it.

…it'd be a bit of a waste though.

Kaishi worried at her lip. Maybe it wasn't the most legal of circumstances but…she had the scroll now, right? She'd give it back! Eventually. Once the uproar she'd no doubt caused had quietened down a bit. In the meantime though, maybe she could just have a peek. Surely they wouldn't leave anything _explosive_ so open in the library, right? Like, if it exploded upon _being opened_ , it wouldn't be much use to anyone. So it should be safe. She'd just take a quick look. Just to know how big a problem she'd caused. Besides, she wouldn't understand most of what was written in there anyway, so it wasn't like she'd be _compounding_ the problem, after all.

Cool. _Coolcoolcoolcoolcool._ No doubt no doubt no doubt.

Right. Still, she wasn't about to open a scroll she'd stolen in the middle of town. She'd need to find somewhere pretty quiet, private, to look her spoils- err, accidental acquisition, over.

She knew just the place.

X-X-X

And that was how Kaishi ended up sneaking out of the village (what, like it's _hard_?) and to the old training ground. Perhaps the rest of her day might have been mildly interesting yet remarkably uneventful, if it weren't for one terribly, awkwardly, impractically inconvenient fact; Kaishi was not in fact, alone.

Which is what made it such an incredibly bad idea for her to decide to open the scroll while walking. Kaishi figured that she was far enough away from the village –and more specifically, the library – that random nin weren't about to catch her in her criminal act. She'd come up here, away from her brothers, enough times to know where she was going, and honestly, the suspense was _killing_ her.

So, keeping only half an eye on the path ahead of her, Kaishi slipped the scroll from her jacket. She held it up to the natural light and, if she hadn't been so absorbed in the way the occasional glimpses of sun turned the moss-green binding an almost-shimmering emerald, she might have noticed the soft grunts and dull thuds. Nevertheless, she was distracted, and slipped her finger under the rope holding the scroll closed, tucking the thin length into her pocket absently.

Thus it came to pass that Kaishi unrolled the scroll an arm's width just as she walked into the tree's clearing. Simultaneously, she heard a surprised shout. Her head whipped up just in time to see a boy, crackling with chakra, try to divert a kick aimed at the training log propped up behind her.

No matter how talented he was, it was too late.

With a shout, the two collided. Kaishi experienced a lot of pain, a blinding flash of light and then-

Nothing.

X-X-X

Kaishi's awakening was less 'gradual and gentle' and more 'sledgehammer right to the noggin'.

"WHAT OUT!" She yelled, holding her hands in front of her face. It took her a second to register that, yeah, nobody's coming at her. Tentatively she lowered her arms, shaking her head at her blurry eyesight. Bad idea.

"Owwww." She whimpered, hands clutching at her long and spiky ha-

"What the fuck?" She whispered, patting her head. This was not her hair. Her hair was short and stubbly (to the disappointment of her mother who wanted her to have the long and luscious hair of Kaishi-aged-seven rather than the buzzcut she sported now). She tugged at one of the mysterious spikes.

As she ducked her head, that's when she realised.

"What the…fu…ck?" It was really all she could say. She spotted the cream shorts, the ninja sandals, the bandage-wrapped forearms all at the same time, together with…another feeling.

 _I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be jiggling down there_. Oh she was _definitely_ no supposed to be jiggling down there. What did that guy _do_?

Kaishi whipped her head around, trying to spot whatever idiot had been running at her with a fucking charged up fucking magic chakra doo-dah. She spotted another body lying down near her, and as soon as she focussed on it, everything slotted into place.

That body was… _her_. There she was, sporting a very unflattering black eye and split lip. That meant-

"I'm _him?_ " That didn't sound quite right. Well, it sounded _right_ , as in 'the solution to the puzzling conundrum that I appear to have stepped into' but apart from that, literally _nothing_ about this situation was right. Still, if she was in that crazy ninja kid's body, they must have, like, switched, right?

She crawled over to her (wow that was going to get confusing) still body, trying to ignore the weird bouncing sensation in her underwear, and shook her own shoulder. First gently, then roughly.

"Oi. Oi, idiot! Hello? Anyone in there? You're not leaving me in this fucked up situation…c'mon, my guy. Wake up. I don't know fuck about chakra, I need to you undo this clusterfuck you did. You listening to me, punk?!" She yelled in her own ear, but the body before her stayed comatose.

Kaishi tried to force the slowly rising swell of panic down again, sitting back on her heels, and then eventually sprawling in the long grass, glaring at her still body. She breathed heavily through her nose.

"Alright, buddy. Ooookay. Okay, I can wait this out. He can't stay knocked out _that_ long. I'll just…wait. Right here. Okay."

So there she sat. And she waited.

X-X-X

When the sun started to set, Kaishi had worked herself well and truly into a frantic panic. She was stomping around the clearing, grasping her unnaturally thick, spiky black hair, casting furious glares at the body, which hadn't moved a cm in the last five hours.

"Oh gods, what am I going to do? I'm going to have to tell someone. I-" She still, an awful thought suddenly occurring to her. What if…what if this guy…wasn't in her body? What if she had somehow, like, knocked him out of his body. Oh my god, what if she'd _killed_ him.

Kaishi started hyperventilating, falling to her knees and pressing her forehead to the grass, trying to stay calm in the face of her rapidly escalating rap sheet. Impersonation, trespassing, theft, _murder_. And the guy had been a _ninja_. Could you get the death sentence for killing a ninja? If it was an accident? Oh she was going to _die_ , holy _shit_.

…

 _Orrr_ , a new thought sidled across her mind, tentatively raising its hand, _we could…_ _ **not tell**_ _anyone. At least for now. There must be like, a reversing jutsu or something, right? It'll be fine, just get the scroll, look it up_.

Kaishi wanted to hit herself. There she'd been, working herself into hysterics for hours, without thinking to look for the scroll.

Okay, so where was the scroll?

Kaishi patted herself down, immediately missing the heavy feel of it weighing down her jacket. Of course, she'd had it open when she'd run into that guy, probably the reason they were in this mess in the first place. Alright, so I must have just…dropped it here…somewhere.

She found herself once again on her hands and knees, trying to find the dropped scroll, just to come up empty. She growled in frustrating, bashing her hand into her – the guy's – head in an effort to knock some sense into herself. Right, so she'd been standing _there_ , so if she'd dropped it, she would have either dropped it in the clearing, or…

Her heard sank and she scrambled to her feet to dash to the edge of the clearing. As she looked at the downward slope of the hill the training ground was on, she felt her hope sink. _Oh no. I know where it is._

And she did. It barely took five minutes to make it down to the river at the base of the hill, and almost immediately she spotted the scroll, having rolled down the hill after being flung from her hands in the collision. It was floating in the river, old parchment soaked through. The only thing having stopped it floating down the river was that it had been caught on a rock, sticking out just on the edge of the bank. Not that it helped much.

Kaishi tried to be as delicate as she could, but the sodden paper just…fell apart in her hands as she lifted up. The whole thing was drenched, and the parts that weren't falling in sodden clumps through her fingers, was blue-black from the ink that had bled and smeared in the water. Any characters that might have once graced the scroll, were indistinguishable. It was useless.

Kaishi felt the frustration and despair bubble up in fat tears that collected in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. An ugly sniffle developed until she was full-out snotty-crying, gasping through the clogged up feeling in her throat. She couldn't really see anything through her blurry vision, her weirdly-thick eyelashes damp and sticking together.

She didn't know how long she cried, but with one last wet hiccup, she eventually wiped her nose in her navy sleeve. She honestly didn't know what she was supposed to do now, now that her biggest clue had washed away with the watery silt.

Reluctantly, Kaishi dragged herself from the collapsed heap she'd fallen into during her crying fit. Gently cradling the remnants of the scroll, she made her way back to the clearing; maybe she was due some good luck – maybe the other guy had woken up. Maybe everything would be okay.

X-X-X

Everything was not okay. Everything was even less okay than she'd imagined when she returned to the clearing to face two ninja, at least chuunin from their tak vests, crouching over her body. Her _other_ body. Her- ah, whatever.

They must have been on high alert, because both drew their weapons and turned at her approach, looking ready to leap at her and slit her throat. One of them blinked, confusedly lowering his weapon.

"Uchiha Sasuke?" He addressed her.

 _Oh- oh holiest of all fucks_. She knew Uchiha Sasuke. Well, not _personally_ , but even she, a civilian with not much to do with ninja, knew him. Knew what happened to his family, it had been all over the news, front page of the Konoha Leaf for a solid month. She also knew that the last Uchiha was the pride of the shinobi community. He was a prodigy, a child star in the ninja arts.

Kaishi had probably killed Uchiha Sasuke. _They were going to kill her_.

She gasped as the realisations all hit her at once. She fell to her knees and threw up, before abruptly, blissfully, fainting.

X-X-X

This time, waking up was kinder than before. The non-smell of a hospital room hit her nose first, followed by the hushed beeping of some kind of medical machine she was hooked up to. There was movement beside her, and she turned her head a little to catch sight of a strangely-dressed nurse. She was moving some kind of pipe fed into the back of her hand, and occasionally tugging on the sheets gently to straighten them; the movement must have woken her.

The nurse must have noticed her waking up, because she smiled gently at Kaishi.

"Oh good, you're awake. I'll be right back."

The kind smile she gave her put Kaishi at ease and she fell back into a sort of fuzzy daze as she left the room. It seemed like just an eye-blink when the door of the hospital room opened, the nurse coming back in, this time followed by some more people.

Kaishi tensed, the fog disappearing quickly from her head. The events of the previous day (was it the previous day? Night? What time was it) came rushing back to her as the newcomer approached.

"Well, Sasuke-kun, how do you feel?" The Hokage asked, not unkindly, liver-spotted hands folded neatly before him.

"U-uh-" She stuttered, her tongue feeling thick and numb. One of the tall, lithe ninjas wearing a mask approached her bedside table, pouring some water from a glass pitcher into a cup, silently proffering it to her.

"Th-thanks," Kaishi murmured, sipping her water. The Hokage's eyes narrowed a fraction, an almost calculating look in his eyes, as though he was evaluating her. Well, she _was_ acting strange.

"Sasuke-kun, do you think you can tell us what happened in the forest? The border guards found you on the evening patrol, in quite a state, I must say. In even more of a state though, is the civilian girl whom you seemed to have been in the presence of. She seems to have only light injuries, but…"

Kaishi swallowed. "But?"

"But she hasn't woken up. Whatever happened, there are no signs of her regaining consciousness. Sasuke?" The Hokage, grandfatherly as he initially seemed, levelled his heavy stare at her. Kaishi felt caught under the pressure and, in the vein of the last seemingly hundred decisions she'd made, said something very stupid.

"She, she surprised me, Hokage-sama. I was- practicing, and she just walked in on me. I was in the middle of a move, I couldn't stop, so I ran into her! I don't know what happened, really. She just, well, we both were knocked unconscious. I woke up, but she didn't. She had this, uh, scroll with her that I think tangled with my attack somehow." She felt the lies fly off her tongue. Well, they were more like white-lies, right? Most of it was true, just not from her perspective. At worst it was dissembling – ninjas loved that shit anyway, right?

Kaishi grew more confident the more she spoke.

"So I went to find the scroll, but it had rolled into the river. I couldn't read it, so I came back to the clearing, and the two other ninja were there. I guess I got dizzy from the collision and blacked out." She finished. She felt a light sweat bead her brow as a heavy silence settled in the hospital room.

The longer nobody said anything, the more Kaishi was sure she was busted. She clenched her hands in the sheets.

"Very well."

Kaishi blinked at the Hokage's words. It sounded like-

"You should be thankful, Sasuke-kun, that you weren't injured any worse than you were. I've been told you'll make an excellent recovery in time to attend your graduation ceremony tomorrow. The girl on the other hand…what a shame." The Hokage shook his white-haired head, pursing his head in regret.

 _What about me?_ She wanted to yell, desperate to know what happened to her body. She wanted to go back to it as soon as possible, no way was she spending the rest of her life as a guy, much less _this_ guy.

The Hokage tugged thoughtfully at his goatee.

"She's in a coma. Her family have been in to see her. The chuunin figured the scroll was important to the whole _situation_ you found yourself in, but it truly was too damaged to make out any of the jutsu responsible for her state. For now, until any more information can be uncovered, she will have to stay at the hospital in the long-term care ward."

Kaishi must have looked poleaxed, because something in the Hokage's face seemed to soften.

"You mustn't blame yourself, Sasuke-kun. It was an accident. The family aren't looking to press charges either. If you'd like to visit, here's the number of the room she's been placed in." He handed over a small piece of white cardstock, the neat characters for 210 written with the precision of a life-time's practice.

"I must take my leave, now. There is much to do before the day is over. Despite what happened today, I do hope you will try to enjoy your graduation ceremony. Congratulations, Uchiha Sasuke." He said, placing his hand for a moment on Kaishi's shoulder, before leaving, his masked ninja shadows disappearing with him.

As the door clicked shut behind them, it truly hit Kaishi.

 _She's in a coma._

 _Too badly damaged._

 _Long-term care ward._

 _Her family-_

Abruptly she shoved her fist into her mouth as a sob ripped itself from her throat, tears again forcing themselves from her. She wasn't Kaishi anymore. Her body, _Kaishi_ , was in a _coma_ , and her family didn't even know. All they knew was that she skipped school and ended up in hospital probably never to wake up. She'd managed to ruin the scroll, the last chance to fix this mess. She might have killed Uchiha Sasuke.

She wailed as the heavy feeling in her heart increased, burying her face in her bedsheets as she bawled her eyes out, tears pouring out along with the stress and despair that collapsed on her like a building on fire. She didn't even notice falling asleep.

X-X-X

The evening passed by in a numb blur. She woke up and was fussed over by a nurse, who told him he officially had a clean bill of health. She stood on shaky feet, looking at the too-big feet as she shoved them into her- into Sasuke's sandals. Kaishi wasn't sure she _was_ healthy. She certainly wasn't okay. She was too deep in. Technically yes, she could go to the Hokage now and explain everything, but what would happen then?

Sasuke would probably still remain dead, and she'd be charged with murder, or manslaughter at best. They'd lock her up – or kill her? She didn't know how ninja law worked, but surely they couldn't let her stay in the Uchiha's body, even if they believed it wasn't a deliberate attack; this Uchiha guy seemed pretty important, it probably wouldn't be the first time someone's tried something on him. Then of course she's also stolen and destroyed a scroll. A scroll that without, they couldn't undo whatever fucked-up jutsu had landed them in this mess. The two outcomes seemed to be either she end up in jail or in an asylum, and with what happened to the rest of the Uchiha family, she wouldn't blame anyone for thinking Sasuke had finally snapped and gone mad, guilty for having almost killed a girl.

Still, if she didn't say anything, where did that leave her? She wouldn't be able to see her mum, her dad, her older brothers ever again, at least not as a member of the family. She's be a boy, a ninja without ninja skills for the rest of her life.

 _Gods, I'm so screwed. It's only been a_ _ **day**_. Yet, she'd managed to turn her own world upside down.

…But what if…

It was a long shot, but it occurred to her that, maybe, with a bit of subterfuge – which was, after all, the ninja way – she could just…pretend to be this Uchiha Sasuke guy. Do research on the side. Maybe she could find a jutsu or, or research this kind of thing. She'd study hard and maybe she could undo all this. Then if, if Sasuke was still alive, just trapped in her comatose body, he'd support that it was an accident. And if he _was_ , y'know, _gone_ , she'd at least still get her own body back.

She stared at Sasuke's toes as they wriggle in the open ends of the sandals. Thoughts circled her head until she nodded her head, mind made up.

Maybe this made her a bad person. Maybe she _should_ sacrifice her personal freedom for the chance that maybe someone somewhere knew how to fix this old, obscure jutsu she'd destroyed. Maybe she was killing any chance this boy had at living a normal life. Well, so be it.

Maybe Mujina Kaishi was just an _asshole_.


	2. Chapter 2

Kaishi made to get up off the bed when her hand, trying to lever her up, landed on the paper the Hokage had given her.

 _210_.

She should say goodbye.

Mind made up, Kaishi stood her, slightly taller than before, body up. She felt a brief rush of dizziness, but didn't black out this time, thankfully. She was actually feeling better than she had since this whole situation started; sometimes a good cry could give your head the good clean up it needs. Sure, it wasn't a perfect situation that she found herself in, but it was a step forward, whether that was the right direction was debatable.

She stepped out into the hospital corridor. It looked remarkably similar to the civilian hospital; she wasn't really sure what she'd been expecting, but it was a lot more normal than she'd thought it would be. A few nurses strolled up the hallways, a patient was making his slow way down the other way, a hand pulling a portable IV stand along behind him. There was a chair or two set up outside each door, which presumably led different hospital rooms.

Kaishi glanced down at the number on the card and set off, squaring her shoulders.

Two sets of stairs and a brief wrong stop off in room 120 later, she stood outside a remarkably _un_ remarkable door. 210, the silver plate read. Her hand shook as it hovered over the door-handle, but she steeled her mind. This would probably be the easiest thing she would have to do in her immediate future, so she was going to have to buck up and deal with whatever shit came her way.

She turned the handle and opened the door, stepping into the room.

The first thing she noticed was how _quiet_ it was. She thought her own hospital room had been quiet, but this was _silent_.

 _Like a grave_ , an unhelpful voice noted from the back of her mind.

 _You shut up_ , she grumbled irritably at herself. She took in the sight of the hospital room, monitors and wires and tubes and right in the middle-

 _That's not me._

It struck her like a punch in the gut. She thought it had sunk in, but obviously she really had to be aware and seeing it to believe it. But truly, there was her body, Kaishi's body, dressed in hospital whites, lying still and pale in the bed. No flicker under the eyelids like a sleeping person showed. If it weren't for the rise and fall of her chest, Kaishi might have thought this a wake, not a hospital room.

"Who are you?"

She wasn't prepared for the voice that spoke. She wasn't prepared for the sight that she had subconsciously glossed over, of the other presence in the room. She wasn't prepared for the sight of her teary-eyed mum staring up at her from where she sat in the chair next to the bed.

She looked terrible. She looked almost as pale as Kaishi's body did, and deep bags had already formed under her bloodshot eyes. Her hands grasped her bag convulsively where it sat on her lap.

"I-" Kaishi didn't know what to say or how to say it, and to her frustration, felt tears well up in her eyes again. Her breath hitched in agitation. She wanted to go hug her mum, to tell her the truth, to tell her it wasn't really her in that hospital bed.

But she reminded herself of all the reasons not to speak up she's tallied up before. She'd only hurt her mum more at this point, if Uchiha Sasuke flung himself into her arms claiming to be her comatose daughter.

"Uchiha." She finally croaked out, jerking out a painful bow. She saw recognition dawn in her mum's eyes and braced herself for the sharp words that were about to follow.

To her surprise, her mother simply let out a shaky sob-sigh.

"So you're the boy Kaishi was with when…I want you to know- I, _we_ don't blame you. I know you ninja think kids are adults if they've got a shiny headband, but to us, you're still a kid. It was an accident." Her mum dragged a hand over her damp eyes, giving her, Uchiha Sasuke, a wobbly smile.

"I told her- I told her not to go out to that training ground. I told her ninja do dangerous tricks when they train. She never was very good at listening. I just, I wish she'd listened to us this _once_." Her voice shook as she started getting teary in earnest.

Kaishi couldn't stand it. She turned and left, blocking out the sounds of her crying mother behind the door. As she spotted the lanky shape of one of her brothers approaching, no doubt to bring their mum home at the end of the hospital visiting hours, she ducked into an empty room, heart beating fast until he was past. He didn't even glance back – she could tell by the hair length, it was Sei, not Aihan.

It didn't matter, not anymore. She had to focus now. She had to play the part of the Uchiha ninja. If she would end up in this body for the rest of her life, then she'd deal with that too. But for now…

Kaishi made her way towards the hospital entrance.

X-X-X

As she was about to leave, she caught sight of a dark-skinned man wearing a hitai-ate hovering around the hospital desk. When he caught sight of her, the man hurried over.

"Sasuke-kun, I'm glad I caught you. I was worried you'd already left." He gave her a gentle smile. Kaishi tried to hide her confusion, but it must have shown somehow in her face, because the man bashfully scratched the scar that stretched across his face, one hand shoved deep into his trouser pocket.

"I didn't want you to have to walk home on your own. It's always nice to know there's someone waiting for you to come out of the hospital." _To know there's someone that cares that you're not dead_ , went unspoken. This time, Kaishi managed to supress the urge to cry. Gods, she was getting emotional. She really needed to cut this shit out if she was going to at least be pretending to be a ninja.

"Shall we?" The man asked, stepping aside and indicating the hospital doors. Kaishi, for lack of anything else to say, simply shrugged. This seemed the right thing to do, as the man just gave her another smile, and was about to fall into step with her when he was hailed from the front desk.

"Iruka-sensei!" One of the nurses called, holding up a card, "You left your ID card on the desk!"

Iruka blushed and quickly turned back to take the card, tucking it away with a quick thank-you to the desk nurse.

"Sensei?" Kaishi said before she could stop herself. Iruka blinked down at her.

"Yes, Sasuke-kun?" He asked, face open, ready for any question.

Kaishi floundered. There was so much she wanted to ask, but so little she could without exposing herself for a fraud. She stuck her hands deep into the pockets of her shorts.

"Are you worried about the ceremony tomorrow?" Iruka asked, when no question was forthcoming.

Kaishi grunted, shrugging again. Iruka gave her a gentle nudge against her shoulder.

"C'mon, cheer up. It's a happy occasion; you earned it. I know how hard you trained for your skills. Don't worry – there won't be any surprise tests or anything. Just, make sure to wear your hitai-ate tomorrow, 'k, else they won't let you in. The rest of the classes have been cancelled for the ceremony." Iruka rambled on.

"You've already taken your registration photo, right? Good. So just come to the classroom, and I'll sort you into your team and-"

"Team?" Kaishi repeated, taken by surprise. She thought she'd be working alone, maybe training with a teacher and she'd have plenty of time to research on her own. Iruka gave her a slightly disapproving look.

"Look, Sasuke-kun, I know you talked to the Hokage about getting an individual teacher, but it's not going to happen. Konoha prides itself on the teamwork between its ninja. I get that you haven't exactly made friends, but you're going to get a team whether you like it or not. Oh…is this about Sakura and Ino?"

"Sakura." Kaishi didn't know who that was, but it seemed safe to just restrict her answers to one word. Iruka seemed to like to talk anyway – she wasn't sure whether she wanted to meet this 'Sakura' or 'Ino' though, considering the way the teacher had said their names.

Iruka chuckled.

"I bet it's weird to have a fanclub at such a young age, right? Still, it might be a bit annoying, but they don't mean any harm. You know, by ignoring them you're only- oh, we're here."

Indeed they were. The tall posts marked the edge of the Uchiha compound. She'd thought it was farther away from the hospital than it actually was. Maybe they'd walked faster talking –or, well, Iruka-sensei talking. She could see the main street of the compound stretch out in front of her, rows and rows of silent houses, windows dark and doors barred.

She hesitated, and Iruka nudged her again.

"'You okay?" He asked, trying not to seem concerned.

She was tempted to say no, to ask him to spend the night. But no, she had to pull herself together. She was Uchiha Sasuke now, and she had to live like he did. He seemed pretty moody though, if the responses she'd given so far seemed the norm.

Trying to channel 'moody' she pulled away from his hand and kicked her sandal in the dirt, throwing a casual 'yeah' over her shoulder as she stepped towards the compound. She didn't turn around, even as Iruka-sensei said his goodbyes.

"Well, I'll see you at the graduation ceremony tomorrow then, Sasuke-kun – remember, 9am on the dot! Get a good night's sleep." Kaishi grunted, and a quick swish indicated Iruka having left her at the gate.

X-X-X

The compound gave her the creeps; there were so many different buildings, from shops to onsen to one-man houses and family affairs. They looked like they should be bustling with movement and energy, but the whole compound was silent, the air heavy with some old grief. In the settling twilight, the houses were cast in darkness, and long shadows stretched across the ground.

Kaishi hunched her shoulders as she hurried through the memorial city, trying to find the path that looked the most used. After turning into only a few dead ends, she found the one house that looked lived in; it looked a decent size for a small family.

She hesitantly pushed at the front door; it opened easily, no key needed. It seemed not even thieves ventured into this part of Konoha. The silence just seemed to get deeper, colder, as she stepped into the genkan, shucking off and turning her shoes before stepping barefoot into the corridor. She began by exploring the house – only a few rooms seemed to still be used. She slid open the paper door to what looked to have been the parents' bedroom; it was covered with a thick layer of dust and even the few clothes on the floor, likely discarded after a long hard day's work, looked like they hadn't been touched or moved for years.

The same repeated with other rooms, likely places where Sasuke had sat and lived with the family. The cleanest – although even that term had to be applied lightly – places seemed to be the kitchen, living room and what looked to be Sasuke's own room. It was mostly bare, with clothes tossed haphazardly onto the floor. A futon that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a while was pushed to one side of the room, while the usual assortment of cabinets and shelves and such took up some of the rest of the wallspace. Upon further inspection, Kaishi spotted a target stuck to the ceiling just over the futon, a shuriken stuck to it dead-centre, pinning a scrap of paper to it. She couldn't make out what was on the paper only that it looked like it was an old photo, the vague silhouette of a man or boy barely holding together under the amounts of cuts and rips through it.

The room that truly gave her the creeps was the only room that didn't look like it belonged in a museum. Quite the opposite – it looked like someone had unleashed a feral cat in it. The remnants of a destroyed futon showed it used to be bedroom, but little else was recognisable – perhaps those wood chips were once a shelf, those shards a mirror. Books and scrolls looked like they'd been burned up and tossed to the ground; indeed, black charcoal ran up the walls and the ceiling, as though someone had set the room on fire, only extinguishing it at the last second before it consumed the rest of the house. Kaishi felt like an intruder in this room in particular, and she quickly left, shutting the door firmly, determined never to look in there again.

Having explored the house she would now be living in, Kaishi wasn't sure what to do next. Her stomach solved the problem by complaining loudly.

After rifling through the kitchen cupboards, Kaishi threw together something resembling a meal, resolving to learn how to cook in the future. Who knew how long she'd have to be self-sufficient. She already missed her dad's creative cooking which, while not _bad_ per se, always contained a huge amount of fatty meats, which she wasn't a fan of. Apparently it was a Water Country thing.

She didn't even realise how much she missed the sounds of family until it was gone – her father always talked at a volume you could hear from upstairs, her mother liked to play music while she worked, and her brothers – well, she wasn't sure what they did in their spare time, but it certainly wasn't quiet. Plus, so far nobody had pushed open the door of her room without knocking, which normally drover her mad, but she was now belatedly missing.

Well, no use in getting sappy about it now. Think of it more as a long-term sleepover, not that Kaishi had ever had many of them.

As she finished eating, she noticed the gleaming metal forehead protector that sat, tossed absently, on the low living room table. She set her plate aside and picked it up, running her thumb over the recessed lines forming the leaf. She'd always thought the shinobi uniform looked damn cool, but never in a million years had she thought she'd be a ninja herself. I suppose, technically she wasn't a ninja _herself_ now either.

Although, talking about ninja, there was some kind of graduation ceremony tomorrow, right? She'd be put on a _team_. They'd expect an Uchiha – what the hell did she know about the Uchiha, past 'almost all of them are dead, truly dreadful'?

"Right, first thing first – research!" She said to herself, and the words echoed emptily in the old house.

X-X-X

Kaishi woke up to the painful glare of sunlight in her eyes, and she blinked irritably, putting her hands over her face, in the process knocking an open book off her stomach.

Oh yeah. Despite Iruka-sensei's advice to get a good night's sleep, Kaishi had spent the evening and night collecting all the books in the house and speed-reading through them to try and glean at least a rough overview of who she was pretending to be. Thankfully, she had great reading skills and a good memory on her side – yeah she wouldn't be perfect, but she wasn't expecting to be quizzed on Uchiha genealogy tomorrow; besides, she'd be able to blame any small blips on her accident.

Sasuke had a lot of Uchiha books at the house, which, upon reflection, shouldn't have surprised her; he had nobody around to teach him anymore. The red stamp in the front of the books showed that a lot of them had been borrowed quite recently from the ninja archives.

Altogether, the research had been quite enlightening, together from an old edition of the Konoha Leaf, from the week after the attack on the Uchiha clan, which she'd found stuffed under a seat cushion of the sofa. She'd figured out that the trashed room must have been Uchiha Itachi's – to be honest, if Sei or Aihan went batshit on the family, she'd probably trash their rooms too.

Kaishi groaned at the migraine that pounded at her temple – getting little sleep on top of all that happened the previous few days were obviously doing a number on her. She wondered if Sasuke had any medicine for that.

A more pressing matter made itself known as she got up though, and she spent a frantic minute trying to find the bathroom.

After that strange, and scarring, experience, she'd caught sight of herself in the mirror, getting the first good look at her new-self.

Uchiha Sasuke was pale as a ghost, although she wasn't sure if that was her doing or his natural pallor. It made the heavy bruise down his jaw stand out in shades of dark blue and purple – she couldn't resist gingerly prodding it and then hissed at the pain. His dark eyes had sleepless bags under them, and his hair –she couldn't help but laugh – sat flat on one side and stood up on the other, where she'd slept on her side on the sofa. She gave a half-hearted attempt at evening the sides out with dampening the hair to try and get it to lie flat. She groaned with exasperation as the hair refused to co-operate. This was why she got a buzzcut! What you went to bed with you got up with, no need to fuss about looking like an utter plonker in the mornings.

Thankfully the shower was easily figured out, and, although the Uchiha hair refused to lay flat and neat, it at least didn't look quite as lopsided after she'd towel dried it. How much of a catastrophe it looked when it was dry, well, she'd just have to deal with it – it didn't look like Sasuke had any kind of hair-products (or they were well-hidden).

That dealt with, she served herself a quick breakfast of the left-over rice from dinner, and some cucumber and carrots she'd found in the fridge.

That's when she noticed the time.

 _Damn, 9 am on the dot he said_.

She wasn't really sure how long it would take to get to the academy, but she thought she roughly knew where it was. What she _did_ know was that it wouldn't be a good start to 'blending in' when she turned up late at her own graduation ceremony.

Stuffing down the last of her breakfast, she quickly brushed her teeth – and yes, she realises the irony of grimacing at using Sasuke's toothbrush…for Sasuke's mouth – and grabbed her hitai-ate before almost dashing out of the room-

Wait.

Ninja carried that leg-pounch thing, right? She remembered taking it off the night before and spent the next five minutes looking for where she'd dropped it. Finally Kaishi snagged the pouch and then spent more time trying to figure out how to wind the bandages underneath so they didn't come undone. She kept one tense eye on the clock – thankfully she'd left herself plenty of time and so left the house, this time with everything she needed, and could search for the academy without rushing.

The academy was hard to miss, and she found it on her first try – it was the sort of building that, unless you went there regularly, you didn't tend to notice, but when racking your brains could pull it up with little trouble. Once there, she just followed the signs saying 'CONGRATULATIONS!' with arrows directing the students through the academy and to the rooms where they'd have the ceremony.

…Actually it didn't look like much of a place for a ceremony. Perhaps the name was more a title than anything else, because the classroom she entered looked like any other, almost _civilian_ , with the exception of big-print signs lecturing students on keeping kunai clean and sharp, and class-work on three-man strategy pinned up on the walls.

Everyone looked up as she entered, and Kaishi did her best to look unaffected and, most important of all, _bored_. Initially she was worried that she'd have to fake Sasuke to his friends, but from what Iruka had said the previous day, it sounded like she wouldn't have to do much work at all; just look standoffish and communicate in grunts.

Students were milling across the rows without direction, so she just picked a seat out of the way and sat down, ignoring the giggles of girls on the other side of the room.

Kaishi didn't look up as she sensed another student sit down, keeping her gaze fixed on the front, waiting for Iruka to show up. It was only a loud "NARUTO! MOVE YOUR ASS! I WANT TO SIT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF YOU!" that jerked her out of her imitation of a statue. She reflexively looked around at the noise, only to make eye-contact with a blond boy – Naruto – who was glaring daggers at her.

"What?" She asked, before she could stop-herself. Naruto looked like he was about to pop his top.

What do you mean, what-" He was unceremoniously shoved into his desk by a pink-haired girl, who put on a blinding smile and a high, grating voice.

"Sasuke-kuuuun~ can I sit next to you?!"

Bewildered, Kaishi gave a noncommittal shrug, trying not to look as uncomfortable as she felt as the girl plonked herself in her personal space. She tried to get back into her _mushin_ zone, when suddenly-

"The hell?" She cursed, as the Naruto kid suddenly jumped on her desk, crouching in front of her and doing his best to boil her eyes in their sockets with his glare. Look, she wasn't trying to draw attention to herself, but if this pipsqueak was going to challenge her, she wasn't about to back down, ninja or no. Suddenly she glared back, putting as much venom into her own attack as she could give back.

"-out of Sasuke-kun's face! Move!" The pink girl was yelling something at them, joined by the clamouring of other feminine voices, but Kaishi was already about a second away from just shoving Naruto off the desk as hard as she could.

Naruto snorted derisively, eyeing her bruises.

"Oi teme, who beat you up?"

 _That does it_.

"I'm going to beat _you_ up if you don't get out of my face right n-"

Suddenly some guy yelled in excitement and kickstarted one of the worst experiences in Kaishi's life. I'd like to say it happened in slow-motion, but really it happened quickly, too quickly for her to avoid – the idiot in the row in front wildly waved his arm, knocking into Naruto who, in turn-

"YARGH!" Kaishi pulled away from the lip-lock she and Naruto had shared for a hot second, yelling loudly. She grimaced and tried to clean her mouth on her arm bandages, like a cat furiously trying to lick the taste of dog hair out of its mouth. Naruto was putting on a similar performance next to her, and their small audience made varying sounds of disappointment, rage and banter. Everyone that is, except for Sakura, who had a slightly different reaction.

Kaishi couldn't say she didn't enjoy what happened next.

X-X-X

Kaishi was distracted from Naruto's violent dilemma by the entrance of Iruka-sensei, who couldn't hide his own small smile when he spotted Naruto, groaning as he pressed his own set of bruises to the cool desk-top. He cleared his throat once, twice and then a third time, loudly and with emphasis as the raucous masses, masquerading as a classroom of ninja children, refused to quieten.

Finally, Iruka-sensei puffed out his chest, his face turning a deep red, before unleashing a bellow that rattled the ceiling tiles.

"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH! YOUR DISRESPECT IS UNBECOMNG OF A NINJA! RIGHT NOW I AM STILL YOUR COMMANDING OFFICER AND IF YOU DON'T GET YOUR ASSES BACK TO YOUR CHAIRS RIGHT THIS INSTANT I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND NAIL YOU TO THEM WITH MY KUNAI, HAVE I MADE MYSELF CLEAR?!" He yelled.

Kaishi almost cowered in the face of his anger, but the rest of the class seemed used to it. Not immune though, it seemed, as they all promptly settled themselves back into their seats, with a collective 'YES, SIR!'.

In the quiet that followed, Iruka sighed, chuckling a little.

"Man, you kids are going to make me old beyond my years, I swear. Ahem. Beginning today you are all real ninjas. But you are still merely rookie genin; the hard part has just started. Now, you will soon be assigned duties by the village. So today we will be creating the 'three-man team's, and each team will have a jounin sensei. You will follow that sensei's instructions as you complete your assigned duties.

Like you're supposed to do with me." Iruka mumbled the last part, covering it up with the rustle of him brandishing a sheet of paper.

"We've tried to balance each team's strength, so your companions might be of the unexpected kind."

 _Shit. Does that mean the rest of my team is going to be losers? Uchiha is supposed to be some kind of prodigy, right?_ She panicked, barely listening as the teams were called out. _Okay, don't panic. If they're really shit at ninja…_ _ **stuff**_ _, they won't notice that you're not amazing. Maybe we'll even get a bum sensei, like that ninja that was drooling all over the library desk. I wonder if ninja volunteer to teach or if it's like a draft…_ Her thoughts meandered, and she only tuned back in when she heard the last team be called out. This must be hers.

"Next, Team 7 – Haruno Sakura," Kaishi looked up to see the pink haired girl nod at her name. _Oh no,_ _ **that's**_ _Sakura? If she's on my team I'm gonna be in hell_ , "Uzumaki Naruto," _Fantastic, this just gets better and better. Please, Iruka-sensei, pull a miracle outta your arse and don't put me with-_ "and Uchiha Sasuke."

 _Brilliant._

Kaishi groaned as her new teammates alternatively cursed and whooped at their assignment.

"Iruka-sensei, why does an outstanding ninja like me have to be on the same team as that bum!" Naruto yelled, pointing a finger at Kaishi.

"Oi, don't call me a bum after you fling yourself at me!" Kaishi snapped back, aiming to embarrass. And it worked, as Naruto started turning red.

"Why you-"

"Naruto! Sasuke's grades were first among all 27 graduates." _Cool, no pressure then_ , Kaishi thought despondently. There was no way she was going to be able to pull this off.

"-do this to balance the teams, understand?" Iruka was explaining. Suddenly Naruto looked so downtrodden, Kaishi felt a pang of sympathy.

"…it won't be so bad. We're a team now, right? We work together to cover each other's asses." She said, trying to ease the tension a bit.

What she got in return were confused and blank stares from both Sakura and Naruto. She fidgeted uncomfortably.

"What're you looking at?" _Uh oh, I have a feeling that wasn't very Sasuke-like._ _Dang it, why can't impersonation come with a user manual?_

Iruka cleared his throat.

"Okay; this afternoon we'll introduce the jounin sensei. 'Til then, you're dismissed."

X-X-X

The class filed out, the new teams leaving in clumps. Naruto dashed out as quick as he could, throwing a last glare at Kaishi over his shoulder.

Suddenly, Kaishi felt a tap on her shoulder. She glanced over at Sakura.

"Neh, Sasuke-kun. Do you wanna spend lunch with me, maybe?"

Kaishi blinked at the earnest, hopeful look in Sakura's eyes. She'd been hoping to sneak away and check what material the academy taught so she could try and see what she'd need to brush up on (and hopefully they'd have instructions on how to start using jutsus because Kaishi? Not a clue). But she couldn't resist Sakura's plea.

"Yeah okay. As teammates." She tacked on at the end, not wanting to lead her on. _Fanclub_ , indeed.

Sakura's eyes grew wide in disbelief and she nodded her head vigorously.

They both stood and Kaishi shoved her hands back into the pockets of her shorts, quickly realising that, uh, she hadn't actually brought any lunch. A quick perusal of Sakura showed that she wasn't carrying any food either.

"Where's your lunch?" She asked. Sakura blushed and fidgeted.

"Oh, I don't usually eat lunch – I'm on a diet."

Kaishi's brow's furrowed as the two meandered down the academy corridor and then along the path outside.

"That can't be healthy. You need food for energy, no?" It wasn't really a question – her mum always told her off if she didn't take a lunch to school, and she'd be distracted with hunger pangs through the day.

Sakura didn't seem to take it as a criticism though, and just giggled.

"Sasuke, are you concerned about me?"

"We're going to be on a team together. We should all do our best. Including eating." She replied uncomfortably. Again she felt like she was leading the girl on, but then, they were going to be working together for a long time in the future, so she was trying to establish a friendly, or Sasuke-level friendly, rapport. But not _too_ friendly. Damn, it felt like doing a tightrope act on a scimitar.

"Oh. We could…buy something?" Sakura hesitantly suggested. She reached under her dress to pull out a secreted away purse she'd tucked into the waistband of her trousers. It jingled as she shook it.

"I don't have-" Kaishi started to say, but Sakura waved it off.

"My treat!" She giggled. Kaishi sent her back a tentative smile.

"Okay then. Well, you choose where."

Maybe this whole team thing wouldn't be so bad.

X-X-X

"Oi, Sakura-chan!" Someone called out as they stepped under the shop-front of a small restaurant. Kaishi scanned the restaurant and spotted a boy with shaggy hair waving enthusiastically from where he and another couple of kids were seated at a table.

"Kiba!" Sakura greeted. She soon as she got within an arm's length of him, a white blur launched at her – Kaishi's first instinct was to pull Sakura away, but she didn't seem panicked. In fact, when the spot reached her, it turned out to be a small white dog, which Sakura seemed accustomed to jumping into her arms. She laughed as the dog wagged its tail and lapped at her chin.

"Sasuke," Kiba nodded at him with a flat smile, before turning back to Sakura, "Here, come sit with us. Team 8 is getting to know each other."

Sakura laughed.

"You've known each other for years, Kiba, this is just you and your friends hanging out. Man, you're luuuucky. We're stuck with _Naruto_." She whined as she sat down next to a white-eyed Hyuuga girl, who took one tentative glance at Kaishi before ducking her head. Kiba sat on Sakura's other side, leaving Kaishi to sit next to the boy in the huge jacket. He obligingly scooted over a bit.

"Good morning, Sasuke." He said, in a surprisingly deep voice. Kaishi wasn't sure how to respond – was he her friend? She just grunted back, looking around at the 1 and 2/3 of a team.

"Maybe we should have invited Naruto…" She mused out loud, and was again taken aback by the confused looks sent her way by Sakura and the others, before Sakura waved the suggestion off.

"No way! He'd eat me out of house and home – besides, he ran off before we could invite him, so it's his fault really."

Kaishi wasn't sure that sounded quite right; they should probably get used to working together as a team – this Kiba guy was getting cosy with his new teammates. Shouldn't they do the same? She just settled on the ever-safe silence, as Sakura and Kiba started up conversation again.

"So do you know who your jounin sensei is going to be?"

"Nah, but I bet he's gonna be some famous super powerful ninja, and he's gonna teach us all the coolest jutsus. Ain't that right, Akamaru?" The little white dog, who had returned to his perch on Kiba's head, gave an affirmative yip. Beside her, the covered boy adjusted his glasses.

"She might be a woman. Why? Because professional jounin come in all gen-"

"Yeah and he's gonna have an awesome beard and, and- ah! What if we get Asuma-san? That'd be super-cool." Kiba talked over his teammate. So far, the girl had said nothing, just sat quietly in her seat, occasionally taking a sip of her green tea.

Kaishi nudged the covered boy as Kiba babbled on.

"Sorry, what did you say?" She asked, wanting to hear more about the woman jounin sensei. Although his eyes and mouth were obscured, she could tell he was surprised by the quirk of his eyebrow.

"I merely meant that there is a chance that our teacher will be a woman, because Konohagakure encourages diversity in its shinobi forces."

"Huh. Maybe we'll get a female sensei too." Kaishi proposed.

"While I did mention encouraging diversity, there is still a large discrepancy between the number of male and female shinobi who are promoted. Why? Nobody can know precisely. Regardless, the phenomenon has resulted in the low probability that there will be an equal number of male and female teachers. Besides," he paused as if for dramatic effect, "there is a rumour that, regardless of the number of genin to pass the academy exam, only three teams will pass the tests set by their teachers."

"EHHHH!?" At the boy's declaration, all the kids around the table exclaimed their dismay. Even the quiet girl gave a disappointed gasp, seeming to shrink further in on herself.

"No way, Shino; where'd you hear that?"

The boy called Shino lifted his hand and stretched out a finger – almost immediately a small black dot landed on his fingernail.

"My kikaichu hear many things. Not all are important, but many are interesting." He pointed out.

"Damn. Don't suppose your bugs heard what tests the teachers have in store?"

"K-Kiba-kun! That would be cheating." The quiet girl piped up, a tone of disapproval in her voice.

"C'mon, Hinata, we're ninja now! Information collection will be one of our jobs – so will be uh, what's that thinking that's like-" He made a snaking motion right with his arm. There was a moment of silence.

"Lateral thinking?" Kaishi suggested, and Kiba snapped his fingers.

"Yeah, that. Lateral thinking's encouraged, Iruka-sensei said so. So? Do ya know the tests?"

All the genin leaned towards Shino with an air of expectation, as he drew himself up to his full height, adjusting his glasses so they glinted in the light.

"I…do not."

They gave a collective 'AWWWWW' and slumped – perhaps Kaishi most of all. She could have really done with some tips on how to prepare. As it was, she wasn't sure whether she would be able to survive a test put to her by an elite shinobi. If (when) she failed, she'd be able to blame it on the concussion from her accident or something, sure, but it still wasn't the ideal start to her subterfuge she'd been hoping for.

Sakura tapped the table absently.

"What are you guys' speciality, anyway. I have no idea how _we_ go stuck with Naruto, but I know the teachers usually have like a theme or something for putting the teams together."

"Awesomeness." "Tracking."

Kiba and Hinata said simultaneously. Kiba looked confused for a moment before perking up.

"Okay, yeah, tracking sounds more likely."

Hinata blushed.

"'S gonna be me an' Akamaru's noses, 'Nata's eyes and Shino's bugs. I dunno what the point with you guys is though."

"…Maybe we're the leftovers." Kaishi suggested.

"Nah, they wouldn't put the Uchiha prodigy on a team with leftovers."

Wrong thing to say – next to Kiba, Sakura's eye started twitching.

"Are you suggesting…you think I'm…a leftover…" She said slowly. By the draining of colour in Kiba's face, he obviously realised the hole he'd dug for himself.

"N-no, just you and Naruto-"

"Naruto and I _what_?"

"Shite."

X-X-X

Kiba was still whimpering, holding a shivering Akamaru in his arms when the bell tolled – they were still close enough to the Academy to hear the signal to collect back at the classroom. Sakura put down the money for her and Kaishi's meal, but Shino pushed it away, pulling his money out instead.

"You should keep your money for more important things. Why? Because as a non-clan ninja you have less access to money than we have. I will pay." He said, brooking no argument. Sakura gave him a tentative smile before nodding her head for Kaishi to follow her. They split with Kiba's team at the restaurant entrance, watching them lope away after the excited puppy, while they took a more meandering path towards the Academy. Kaishi just followed Sakura's lead.

"Sasuke-kun?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you…okay?" Sakura asked, sounding a bit uncomfortable. Kaishi lifted an eyebrow – she hadn't expected Sakura to notice, too caught up in fangirling over 'Sasuke-kun' or, if she had, Kaishi didn't think Sakura would push her luck by questioning Sasuke's more temperate personality.

"Why do you ask?" She tried to deflect, watching Sakura scuff the ground with the toe of her sandal out of the corner of her eye.

"It's just…you're not acting like yourself. You don't…well, you don't pay attention to me, usually." That sounded like it hurt to admit. Kaishi shifted uncomfortably, trying to figure out how to not put her down while also not making it seem like she suddenly wanted to date her.

"Look, Sakura. I…I don't like it when you fawn over me. It's weird." She said, as bluntly as she could. She saw Sakura jerk back as though struck and she felt a sorry pang in her heart.

" _But_ , we'll be working together. It would be annoying to have to work with a…uh, fangirl. Can't we just…start again?" Kaishi tried to soften the blow. The way Sakura had acted around Kiba, Kaishi had enjoyed herself. It surely wouldn't be so bad if they could just be friends. She didn't know how Sasuke felt about the whole situation with Sakura, or whether he felt anything at all, but she'd be piloting the Sasuke-bot for the foreseeable future, and she could do with not fending off over-enthusiastic girls at every corner. It would be a distraction she couldn't afford – besides, she needed teammates to back up her non-existent ninja-skills. Naruto seemed to have some kind of feud going on with Sasuke, so no help would be coming from that direction, which just left the pink haired girl.

Who was biting her lip and shifting from side to side as she contemplated something.

"Sakura?" Kaishi prodded.

"Uh, I- I-" Her shoulders slumped, and her voice was small, "I'll do my best." She still sounded despondent.

Kaishi sighed.


	3. Chapter 3

Kaishi felt like sprawling across her desk in boredom. Their sensei was late – they'd already seen the rest of the teams file out (with Kiba only looking slightly disappointed when a fierce female sensei stepped up to collect them), and even Iruka-sensei had left, saying he had a prior engagement, and giving them all – and maybe especially Naruto – a firm Look that spoke volumes.

 _Behave_.

So they'd behaved. For an hour. And then another hour. Naruto had already snuck out of the room once and returned with an apple no doubt pilfered from the teacher's lounge and had munched it obnoxiously, putting the core in Iruka-sensei's desk.

Sakura was surprisingly quiet, no doubt still thinking about the awkward conversation they'd had, not even putting much venom into her replies to Naruto's increasingly irritating needling.

"AUGH!" Naruto groaned, tugging at his blond spikes in frustration, "Is he even going to turn up?" Abruptly his face fell, as though a tremendous realisation occurred to him.

"He _is_ coming, right? You don't think-"

There was a long awkward pause where they call wondered whether they were in fact going to get a teacher, or whether they'd been hung out to dry. Nobody wanted to voice the possibility.

"It's a lot of effort to go to just to fail us." Kaishi said, trying not to worry at her lip. She could really do with just _one_ thing going as it should in her life right now.

"Yeah but that Aburame guy said the teachers would give us tests. You don't think this could be a part of one?" Sakura said, the first time she'd offered in nearly three hours.

"Huuuuh? Nobody mentioned anything about a test!" Naruto whined, hopping up and crouching on his desk, head in his hands. Why the kid couldn't just stay in his seat was beyond Kaishi. Although, even she'd had to get up and amble about a bit to stretch her legs. The tension was killing her.

"What could they want us to accomplish? There's no obstacles here." Sakura murmured, seemingly to herself. She twirled a strand of long pink hair between her fingers.

"Maybe we need to…go _find_ them?" Kaishi asked.

"Ano, but we don't know what he looks like or, or anything like that, how're we supposed to find him?" Naruto said grumpily.

"Well maybe that's the challenge." She pointed out. There was a moment of considering silence.

"Okay. Let's go!" Naruto shouted, jumping off the desk and running to the door, slamming it open. He was halfway out when he realised they weren't following. He turned back to stare impatiently at Kaishi and Sakura.

"What're you waiting for?"

"But…if this isn't a test, what if we're not here when he turns up?" Sakura worried. Naruto made a face at that.

"If the lazy bum can't be bothered to turn up on time, then maybe he should go looking for _us_. We can prove that we have, uh, go, uh-"

"Initiative?"

"Yeah. We're ninjas now! We gotta make a decision and go with it. Now let's go!" He grinned at them.

Kaishi looked at Sakura, who looked back at her. Kaishi shrugged and they both got up from where they'd been sitting, following Naruto out of the door.

X-X-X

"Where should we start?" Kaishi asked. Sakura tapped her chin.

"The mission room? Lots of shinobi gather there." She pointed out. Naruto gave a full body shiver.

"No way. Iruka-sensei will probably be there, and if he finds out we left without our sensei…" He trailed off, as both he and Sakura gave full-body shivers. From what Kaishi had seen of Iruka-sensei's temper, she could understand the reaction.

"Maaan, this would be so much easier if we could walk up walls." Naruto muttered as they wound their way through the streets near the Academy. Every now and then Kaishi would catch sight of kids around their age with their hitai-ate proudly displayed, the metal glinting in the sun. But they were still widely dispersed within the crowds of civilians – mostly very young or middle-aged. All the civilian kids Kaishi's age would be in the civvie school right now. She felt a pang of regret; Tsuya and Hane already probably heard about her accident. She wondered if they were missing her at the lunch table.

"Oh, oh – the Jounin standby station!" Sakura declared triumphantly. For a moment Naruto's face was scrunched up in confusion before it cleared.

"Ah, I know where that is. I graffitied all the windows black once." He said proudly. Sakura looked shocked.

"Naruto! You know, you doing all this is why-"

"Guys! Can we not?" Kaishi groaned, knowing where this escalation would lead. Naruto rounded on her.

"Don't tell me what to do, teme."

"Stop calling me teme, idiot!"

"You wanna go-"

"There!" Sakura pointed, interrupting Kaishi and Naruto, who were standing toe to toe at this point. Naruto was so stubborn! Kaishi was just trying to be helpful. With one last sneer, Kaishi dragged herself away to follow Sakura's pointing finger. The building was round and squat, with Konoha's iconic ramshackle roof fixtures. The character ' _ue'_ was branded on the side, just in case anyone missed it. The building had many large, wide windows around the outside.

Naruto huffed.

"I'm not working with this jerk!" He declared, folding his arms. Sakura clucked her tongue, giving him a gentle slap around the head.

"Idiot! Sasuke is right, we're a team now. We have to work together. Especially now – that's a building full of jounin; I doubt they're just going to let us waltz in there."

"So…windows?" Kaishi ventured.

"Yeah, but as Naruto said, we can't do the wall-walking thing yet. Unless you…?" She trailed off hopefully. Kaishi shook her head, causing her to deflate. Suddenly Naruto grinned.

"We could stack me!"

Kaishi and Sakura exchanged a confused glance.

"Huh?"

He sniggered, crouching down. He closed his eyes and began to form seals. Kaishi took a step back, nervous of what Naruto was intending – Sakura just rolled her eyes, obviously expecting Naruto to fail his…whatever.

" _KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU!"_

Suddenly, a great cloud of smoke enveloped them, and a series of pops like cooked popcorn echoed around them. Kaishi coughed, her eyes stinging – but when the smoke cleared, her eyes widened in amazement for a different reason.

"YO"

"YO"

"YO"

"YO"

"YO"

The crowd of Narutos gave an eerie, synchronised salute.

"Naruto…" Kaishi gasped, but Sakura was louder.

"WOAH! Are these…real?" She asked in awe, tugging at the blonde spikes of a Naruto who batted her off.

"This is amazing, Naruto – I don't know how you managed it. Were you just pretending not to be able to do a shadow clone earlier?" She asked.

One of the Narutos rubbed the back of his head, grinning.

"Hehe, you caught me, Sakura-chan~ I'm a genius, really, just like, no, _better_ than Sasuke."

Sakura raised an incredulous eyebrow at him.

"I don't buy it." She said flatly and Naruto's face fell; he looked a bit hurt actually.

"Anyway you got it, it's a useful jutsu here. By sitting on the shoulders of the clones, we can look into the windows."

"No way are you sitting on my shoulders, teme."

"You-!" Kaishi cut herself off, taking a deep breath, "I was going to suggest Sakura actually. She's the lightest one here and she has better observational skills than you." Kaishi couldn't resist the dig at the boy, who didn't seem to even register the insult, too happy that he was going to be 'holding' Sakura.

Sakura meanwhile, looked unsure.

"I-I dunno. It looks really high…" She said, turning her face up to where the sun glinted off the windows.

"Ne, ne, Sakura-chan, my clones are really strong, though."

"And if you fall, we're here to catch you." Kaishi assured her. Sakura blushed at that, while Naruto glared at Kaishi. She shrugged in a sort of 'what?' way.

"Well…okay then. But who am I even supposed to look for?"

"Someone shifty!" Naruto supplied, unhelpfully.

"Look for someone maybe sleeping? Or looking like they're really trying to avoid a job. Anything that gives an idea why they might have missed the meeting time." Kaishi suggested. Sakura nodded.

So began the process of building the toppling tower of Naruto – for topple it did. Several times.

Each time, the clones would get into an argument and Sakura would look more and more nervous.

"You _will_ catch me, won't you, Sasuke-kun?" She asked, looking worried as a tower of eight Narutos almost made it; one sneezed, and they fell like orange jengas.

"Yeah. Don't worry – you're a shinobi. It's a piece of cake." Kaishi encouraged. Sakura blushed again with a smile. Kaishi supressed a sigh.

Finally, the tower seemed to stabilise at twelve Narutos tall, at just the right height that another genin could then take a peep into the windows looking into the jounin lounge. It was as good a place to start as any. Sakura took a deep breath and started levering herself up the clones, the occasional Naruto getting a boot in his face. At one point, the tower started leaning heavily and Sakura gave a small shriek, clutching onto a Naruto, who blushed furiously. Still, she made it to the top without incident, swinging her legs over the last Naruto's shoulder. She leaned forwards to look into the window.

"Looking for me?" Kaishi yelled in surprise as the words were whispered in her ear. She spun around but tripped – so far, tripping had never led to anything good for her. And it seemed that wasn't about to change as she stumbled and crashed headlong into the very bottom Naruto.

There was a moment when everything around her seemed to freeze, but soon time sped up again: Naruto was crushed under her, and the tower collapsed. Narutos fell left, right and centre – a high-pitched shriek of terror made Kaishi scramble off Naruto, looking up. Sakura was falling, her eyes screwed shut. Kaishi lunged-

And caught Sakura. Well, it involved less _catching_ exactly and more cushioning her fall. Like someone going to town on bubble-wrap, the Narutos started popping out of existence, until only the real Naruto, still lying on the ground clutching his stomach, a tearful Sakura and a severely dishevelled Kaishi were left behind.

"S-Sakura-" Kaishi gasped and Sakura quickly got off her, smoothing her dress down as she wiped her eyes.

"S-Sorry…"

"My, my, you're certainly more resourceful than I anticipated." The smug voice that had startled Kaishi originally, made them all look up. A shinobi was standing over them, grey hair standing up as though electrocuted. He was a difficult figure to describe, for a mask and askew hitai-ate obscured the rest of his face, but for one drooping eye. Oh, and that patronising voice of his. So far, Kaishi didn't like him much.

"Ah, what a pathetic show."

Oh, she _really_ didn't like him much.

X-X-X

 _There's no way this guy is our sensei_ , Kaishi thought. But sure enough, he had the slip Iruka-sensei had shown them their teacher would have. He'd waved the slip at them and then told them to follow, before all-but disappearing. They had collectively scrambled to run and keep up with him. By the time they reached the top of the building (and Kaishi getting lost at least four times in the various corridors and stairwells) they were winded and sweaty, flopping down on the cool grass of the roof-top garden. Above them, a creaky sign saying ' _heaven_ ' swung in the gentle breeze.

The jounin gave them a dispassionate look, receiving three tired glares in return. Finally Naruto couldn't take it anymore.

"Where were you!? We were waiting for _hours_. Even _Kiba_ got his teacher faster."

"Ahhh…I came across a bird that said Kiri shinobi were attacking its nest, so it was my duty to investigate." He drawled, unblinking.

 _That's…definitely a lie_ , Kaishi thought – a sideways glance showed a matching incredulity on Naruto and Sakura's faces.

"Maaah, now that you made it here, let's begin with some introductions."

"What do you want to know?" Sakura asked.

"Hmm, how about your likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, hobbies…things like that."

Naruto grimaced.

"Ne, why don't you introduce yourself first, old man?"

"Yeah," Sakura chimed in, "You look shifty."

The jounin looked taken aback for a second, before scratching at his mask.

"Oh, me? My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have no desire to tell you guys about my likes and dislikes. Dreams for the future…they're fleeting, no? And I have a variety of hobbies…"

Sakura blinked.

"So…all we learned is his name? Shifty." Kaishi and Naruto nodded in agreement.

"Now it's your turn, from left to right."

"Oh, me, me! My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like cup-ramen, and when Iruka-sensei buys me ramen! I dislike waiting the three-minutes for ramen to cook."

 _How is he still_ _ **alive**_ , Kaishi thought in disbelief.

"And my dream is to surpass the Hokage! Then everyone in the village will acknowledge my existence!"

 _Eh? That's kind of sad_ , Kaishi thought. Surpass the Hokage? Unlikely. But it didn't sound like he wanted the power, just for people to see him. Did his parents ignore him or something?

"Hobbies? Pranks, I guess." Naruto tacked on.

 _Yeah that's not gonna help you become Hokage, buddy_.

Kakashi-sensei eyed Naruto up with an intensity unlike his first impression, before looking at Kaishi.

"Next."

"H-huh? My name is Mu- Uchiha Sasuke. I like…a lot of things, and my dislikes are lots too." She internally winced as her words clunked out, unprepared, "Um, my dream is…to become my true self." She finished, trying not to think of the Mujina Kaishi lying pale and still in the hospital bed. She'd be herself again one day.

She shifted uncomfortably under Kakashi-sensei's scrutiny – he had an iron look on his face, as though he had expected a different response from her. She'd hoped the vague answers would be enough, but maybe Sasuke had talked to people about a different dream before? Kaishi resisted the urge to tug at the stuffy collar – damn thing always got in the way.

"Okay…lastly, you girl."

"Hai! My name is Haruno Sakura. The thing I like is-" Here she gave a glance to Kaishi and her face cycled through some sort of expressions; besotted, confused, determined. She folded her arms in front of her, straightening her back. "The thing I like is books, and I dislike Na- um, lots of gross mud all over my dresses. My dream for the future? I…I guess to make my parents proud of me." She added, as though unsure of her own words. Kaishi had a sneaking suspicion she knew what Sakura had almost filled her introduction with, but obviously she was doing her best to 'start over', even if her face was red as a cherry tomato now.

"Hm. _Fascinating_." Kakashi-sensei drawled sarcastically. He received three glares in return – it seemed that the team would be united less by interests and more my being completely unimpressed with their new teacher.

"Tomorrow will be funny." He chuckled. Naruto bobbed his head from side to side in confusion.

"Eh? Eh? Oi, old man-sensei, what's tomorrow."

"Worry less about tomorrow and more about today if you keep calling me an old man." Kakashi-sensei sighed, before relaxing back into a careless pose.

"Tomorrow will be our first session as four. The theme? Survival."

"Survival? Neh, sensei, we already covered survival tactics at the Academy." Sakura said, with the air of someone who had her hand up in the classroom.

"Hm, I'm sure you have. Books and words and little doodles written out on paper like you're Sun Tzu himself. No, this is very different from what you've been bottle-fed at the Academy."

Kaishi's eyebrow twitched – if he weren't an elite Jounin sensei and she was, well, nothing much, she'd love to wipe that patronising quirked eyebrow off his face for his words. She stayed silent, linking her hands to stop herself doing something incredibly stupid (as she'd shown so far, she had a propensity for not thinking before acting).

"So…what is it?" Naruto asked.

At his question, Kakashi-sensei chuckled. It was a sound like soft rolling thunder, quiet but threatening as it built up to a lightning strike. Kaishi shivered.

"Hey. Where's the joke, sensei?" Sakura muttered.

"Oh, it's nothing. It's just that, when I tell you this, you guys are going to flip."

He received three dubious glances.

"Of the 27 graduates, only 9 will be chosen as Genin. The rest will be sent back to the Academy. This training is a super difficult exam with a failure rate of over 66%." He said, with unholy glee in his voice.

"Oh, just that?"

Kakashi-sensei's face fell in disappointment at Sakura and Kaishi's bland reactions. Naruto was the only one who looked shaken – hadn't they told him? Kaishi felt a bit bad about forgetting that.

"Maaah, you could do with looking a bit more shocked, kids." Sensei sounded reproachful. He'd obviously been hoping for a more universal reaction a la Naruto.

"WHAT THE HELL? But we worked so hard! Then what was the point of graduating!?" Naruto yelled, jumping up in agitation.

"Oh that? That was just to weed out the ones who didn't stand even a chance in the field."

"No way…" Naruto slumped down again, grasping at his blond spikes. Kaishi kept a worried eye on him; he was taking this the hardest, not having time for it to sink in properly. Thank the gods for Shino and his kikaichu, letting her keep up her cool front.

From his ninja pouch Kakashi-sensei pulled out a sheaf of paper, flapping them casually.

"Tomorrow I will be grading your real life performance. I get to decide if you pass or fail. Bring all the tools you think you'll need and then bring some more. Oh, and skip breakfast – you'll throw it up." He added, as though the rest of his speech wasn't threatening enough. Naruto looked like he was about to have an aneurism.

"Here. The details are on the printout. Don't be late. Any questions? No? Good." He said as a sign-off. Before anyone even had a chance to voice their questions, he'd given the team a lazy salute and vanished into thin air, with a noise like steel on silk. The team were left dumb-struck on the roof. Kaishi gave the print-out a speed-read – mostly it just listed the same details Kakashi-sensei had passed on, with locations and times and dates. At the end the paper was labelled with a sloppy _heno-heno-moheji_.

"That guy is unbelievable!" Sakura groaned, clutching her own printout. Naruto sprung up with all the supressed energy of a lit firecracker.

"YOSH! I'll see you tomorrow, Sakura-cha-"

"Hold on, Naruto. We should make some team plans." Kaishi caught the back of his jacket as he was about to speed off. Naruto shrugged her off.

"No on your life, Sasuke! I know you'd just try and set me up to fail. I'm going to prove that I'm a better ninja than you, believe it! Watch out for the Orange Flash on the field tomorrow!" He stuck out his tongue at Kaishi and before she could stop him again, made a mad dash for…wherever it is Naruto disappears off to.

"Sasuke, should we…?" Sakura suggested. Kaishi sighed.

"No point really. We should either make a full-team plan or it's all going to fall apart anyway. You should get a good night's sleep." She said to Sakura, standing up and cracking the kink out of her back. Sakura looked a bit despondent, chewing her lip as she read over the printout, probably to avoid catching Kaishi's eye.

"Sakura- argh, never mind. I'll see you tomorrow. And at least eat something like a cereal bar in the morning – you don't want to flake out in the middle of a move." _And we all know what getting distracted in the middle of a move could end up like, don't we_ _ **Sasuke**_ _?_ Kaishi muttered to herself.

She didn't look at Sakura as she made her way, at a more stately pace than Naruto, down the building. She had some hardcore reading to do.

X-X-X

The ninja archives wasn't a place she'd expected to visit again so soon, and she felt a light sweat form as she used Sasuke's access card to get in. Maybe the sleeping chuunin had been punished for the commotion she'd caused, because a more alert guard was sitting at the desk this time, taking a long moment to look Kaishi up and down before letting her in. Her heart was beating like a spiderweb in a gale and she tried to calm down the red flush that she could feel building under the skin. Kaishi let out a heavy breath when she was in.

It looked the same as it had the last time, although she wasn't really sure what she'd expected to have changed; the whole clusterfuck of her life had only happened two, maybe three days ago. _Holy shit, has it only been that long? It feels like a lifetime_ , she thought to herself.

"Where to start, where to start…" She murmured to herself. She headed in the direction of the 'Beginners' section and got to work.

X-X-X

"Urgh! What a load of junk!" She groaned, tossing another book aside. She'd found herself a quiet, tucked away nook in the library to practice with the small tower of beginner level jutsu books she'd picked out.

It seemed to have gone well at the start – she'd skimmed the 'introduction to chakra manipulation' section. It seemed pretty self-explanatory. Collect chakra, form it, release it.

The first exercise had gone off without a hitch. It had barely taken any effort at all – maybe it was partly Sasuke's body working off muscle memory, but the chakra rushed to her palm, where she'd tried to direct it, and manifested itself as a light glow, which faded as soon as she took her concentration off. So forming and releasing was no problem.

 _This'll be a piece of cake!_ She'd thought, _I don't know why ninja make themselves out to be so superior_.

She was a fool.

As soon as she got to any of the entry level jutsu was where her talents shrivelled up and reincarnated as pure frustration.

 _Kawarimi._

 _Bunshin._

 _Henge_.

Gods, she hated those titles. The chakra collection went fine. The hand-seals, though they took a bit to memorise and still weren't forming exactly seamlessly, went fine. But somewhere between the start and the end, shit just went _wrong_.

" _Bunshin no jutsu!_ " She tried again. There was a grey puff of smoke. It cleared to reveal…a collapsed, wan figure which took one, tottering step before collapsing. To add insult to injury, it didn't even look like Sasuke! The figure had rounded cheeks and lopsided freckles, patterns of moles scattered over the face topped with a pale buzzcut.

 _Damn, why do I have to have a sense of identity?_

She released the jutsu and the clone poofed away. She wished she could release the I-Hate-Myself-no-Jutsu too, but that one seemed to be here to stay. She plopped herself down and picked up another book, opening it with very little in the way of expectation.

 _»-building off of the bunshin, it is possible to-«_

 _»-chakra. After forming that collected, an elemental jutsu can-«_

 _»-very useful for confusing the enemy. Kawarimi can also-«_

 _Oh my gods, I'm going to die tomorrow_ , Kaishi thought in despair. She picked up another, slim volume, leafing through it idly while consumed with self-pity.

 _»Seals are a versatile technique that requires precision, a good memory and a steady hand. As a technique, it is sadly neglected in the field of ninjutsu, due to not being a derivative of the base techniques taught at entry-level education. It also requires additional materials than one's own chakra, which will do the part of one's tenketsu manipulation, i.e. it will form the expelled chakra outside of the body, in reverse to normal jutsu techniques, which manipulate the chakra flow before releasing. While fuinjutsu is considered a slow and unsubtle technique, those who master the art have proven their worth even in the midst of the fiercest battle.«_

Kaishi sat up, interest piqued. She turned the book to finally read the front cover; ' _How to Seal the Deal; Entry-Level Fuinjutsu Techniques and the Mind behind the Magic'_.

Kaishi grinned.

X-X-X

She finally left the archives with a bag full of books, and a faint spark of hope. She knew where her next stop would be – she'd asked the shinobi at the (other) desk where to find the supplies she was looking for, and had a crude map scribbled on the back of a receipt for the teriyaki restaurant downtown. She made a brief stop-off at the Uchiha residence to unload, and to spend another 20 minutes looking the place up and down, trying to figure out where a teen boy would hide his money. She found it eventually, hidden in a slit cut into his futon. Kaishi counted the yen, trying to figure out the whole concept of budgeting on the spot – she realised she'd need to leave some for food. Did Sasuke have to pay bills? Water. What else?

She didn't even know how often, or from where, Sasuke got his money. Did he get an allowance? From a bank? Was he draining the resources left by his family? How much would the supplies cost? (She hadn't asked).

In the end, Kaishi had to make a decision – she pocketed a rough amount that she hoped would be enough for what she needed to buy, and shoved the rest back into the hiding place. She could only hope that her long-term prospects would clear up at a later date. Maybe Sasuke had some bills or something laying around…

X-X-X

The next day dawned too quickly for her liking, and Kaishi realised that, once again, she'd fallen asleep in the living room, surrounded by notes and textbooks. She'd spent the night practicing, imagining the horrors their teacher would unleash on them. She wasn't a ninja, so she wasn't sure whether her imagination was dramatic or tame, and while she hoped for the latter, the way her life was going? Better prepare for Dramatic.

She'd packed her bag the previous night – she'd only found a shoulder bag, which she wasn't keen on; shoulder bags flopped and flapped and got in the way on a normal day. Eventually she'd managed to unearth a ratty backpack that clipped across the chest. It had seen better days, but would serve her for the test. She'd loaded as much as she could find in Sasuke's stash into it – knives and needles and wire, throwing stars and caltrops. She'd tucked her cheat-sheet into her waist; she only had one evening to prepare for this, after all, there was no way she was going to remember all the designs and codes for the seals. Besides, she was only aiming for the basics today, just enough to let her avoid being absolutely flattened. No way was she going to be buried in Sasuke's body.

She'd made sure to stock up on chakra-ink and pre-made tags for different effects. Like this all she would have to do is stick 'em, prime 'em and watch, very little hand-seal fussing involved. She'd done her best to memorise and practice with some of the more multi-use seals and Kaishi thought she might have done pretty well. Thank the gods for spending too long doodling in class. A 'steady hand' and 'good memory' were some of her very few characteristics she was confident about.

Kaishi had _intended_ to get a good night's sleep, like she'd suggested to Sakura, but in the end she'd been kept up by her pessimistic brain, and she barely felt ready to _walk_ , let alone fight today. Oh well, no rest for the wicked, and she hadn't exactly been an angel recently.

She moved through her morning routine like a zombie, barely remembering to stretch – she wasn't sure whether she'd have time to do it when they got to the meeting place. She knew the area – it surrounded the memorial stone; her mother had taken her there once, to talk about Kaishi's grandad, her father, who had been the last ninja in their family. His name was on there, almost worn away by time and the tender touches of grieving families.

Kaishi glanced at the clock – she'd make it in good time if she left now. She quickly double checked her pack, then checked it again, read over the printout to make sure she'd understood everything correctly, then checked her pack again _just to make sure_. She was about to leave, but then caught sight of the bowl of apples in the kitchen.

He _had_ said not to eat any breakfast, but it's not like an _apple_ would count, right? She shrugged – Kaishi didn't throw up often, a fact that her parents marvelled at, since her brothers would puke left right and centre. She pocketed an apple, then hesitated.

 _Ah, why not_ , and took another two, before heading out of the door.


	4. Child Torture is Education

She reached the meeting area just to find Naruto already there, nearly vibrating with excitement and taking his energy out by kicking a log into splinters. Well, he and his clone. Twice the normal Naruto enthusiasm at this time in the morning?

Kaishi supressed a groan.

"Morning." She grunted, tossing her pack down next to Naruto's – his pack was in an even worse condition than hers, messily darned and glued together in places. A dirty patch covered one of the corners, the threads straining against the abuse heaped on it. She flopped backwards onto the grass, the green spiked tickling the back of her neck.

Kaishi had decided against that awful Uchiha collar – every time she'd just got used to ignoring it, it'd be there, a blurred black line at the edge of her vision. It was so irritating, and unfortunately it turned out Sasuke didn't have many clothes that _didn't_ feature it. Still, a bit of digging unearthed some clothes that looked almost normal – a dark green t-shirt, with three-quarter length cream shorts. She'd wound the bandages around her arms again, figuring they were there for _something_. This time she was quicker putting on the leg-holster and its bandages, and tied the hitai-ate tighter, since it made a habit of slipping down slowly the other day. Kaishi had felt pretty put-together that morning. She was even more thankful for the lighter clothes when the day already started to heat up, before it was even noon.

Naruto didn't make a reply except to kick the tree-trunk extra hard.

Kaishi felt the heavy weight of the apples in her pocket and took them out. Two went onto the grass, the other-

Kaishi grinned as the apple hit Naruto dead-centre on the back of his head. He spun around, eyes narrowed, but she cut him off before he could start on the insults.

"You should eat that. It's not enough to be sick on but it's better than no food at all." She said. Naruto kicked the apple on the grass.

"No way, teme. It's poisoned, isn't it?"

Kaishi was taken aback.

"What? No. What?"

"I know what you're doing – you want to sabotage me so I don't show you up today, right? Hehe, I knew you were scared really." Naruto said, pointing at her triumphantly. Kaishi felt irritation rise in her.

"I was just-"

"Trying to poison me."

"Oh for- I'm just offering you a fucking apple!" She snapped.

Naruto snapped back.

"Yeah right - _nice_ people do that, like Sakura-chan or Hinata-chan. Not Sasukes." He said, as though that explained everything.

Kaishi snarled, getting up and picking up the apple Naruto had kicked.

"This?" She proffered up the apple, before taking a huge bite of it, keeping eye-contact with Naruto. She chewed open-mouthed, just to be extra gross, "Was me being nice." She dropped the apple, swallowing pointedly. Naruto looked kind of constipated.

"You-you're trying to put me off. Confuse me!" But it was Naruto was looking a bit lost, as though the very concept of Sasuke being nice had turned the world inside out around him.

"Why can't you believe that I'm just trying to be a teammate?" Kaishi asked, frustrated. She flopped down on the ground again.

Naruto had had enough.

"Because you're an asshole and you're mean, but everyone worships the ground you walk on! Because Sakura-chan loves you but you treat her like dirt! Because- because your parents left you too and you never let me help you." He swallowed heavily.

Kaishi felt a simultaneous pang of sorrow for Sasuke and Naruto. _'Your parents left you too'_. Naruto was an orphan?

She was about to open her mouth to retort but Naruto kept going.

"And-and you think you're so much better than everyone else because you're at the top of our class. But I'll beat you!"

"Why?"

Naruto stopped.

"What?"

"Why do you want to beat me? I'm not the strongest ninja in the village. Not even the strongest genin probably. What difference do you think it will make to beat me?"

Naruto looked confused.

"Do you just want to make other people unhappy?" Kaishi pressed, and Naruto looked like someone had hit him.

"No! See, you're being an asshole again! Argh! I don't want anyone to be unhappy-"

"Then why?"

"I- you're… _there_. I've got to start somewhere." He whined. He sat down heavily – still a good distance from Kaishi. She tried to smile encouragingly at him.

"Well, you've got your kage bunshin. I can't do that." She started to say.

Suddenly Naruto narrowed his eyes at her, then his eyes widened and he rubbed the back of his head, laughing abashedly.

"Ah, Sakura-chan, you really got me."

"Huh?" Kaishi looked around for Sakura, but she wasn't anywhere to be seen.

"Neh, you really look like Sasuke, you had me fooled for a mom-" His face blanched as the leaves rustled.

"Ah, sorry for being late, mum misplaced my hairbrush. I hope you two aren't fighting already." Sakura greeted them brightly with a small wave. Naruto blinked, looking from her to Kaishi, back to Sakura.

Sakura seemed to notice she'd walked in on a tense situation.

"Uh…Sasuke?"

"Morning, Sakura. Have an apple. They're _delicious_." Kaishi said pointedly. She tossed one of the apples to Sakura and bit into the other, making satisfied noises as juices dripped down her chin, keeping eye contact with Naruto the whole time. Naruto grunted and looked away, crossing his arms, pouting. Sakura meanwhile held onto the apple like Kaishi had the secret to Enlightenment.

"What, you don't want it either?" Kaishi grumbled. Sakura startled, flushing.

"N-no. Thank you, Sasuke." She said, taking a small bite out of the apple. Behind her, Kaishi spotted Naruto bobbing his head from side to side, fluttering his eyes and silently miming 'thaaaaank you Sasuke-kuuuun~'. Kaishi pulled a face back at him and suddenly they were both three years old. Their pathetic face war was ended when Sakura tossed her apple core into some nearby bushes. Flipping her skirt under her, she plopped down on the grass.

"Ne, what did you guys do to prepare for today?" She asked, groaning as she stretched her arms in the air. Naruto, seemingly still filled with endless energy, jumped up and punched the air.

"I've been polishing up my amazing taijutsu skills. I put a mask and hair on Kugutsu-kun and practiced by left-right. He won't see me coming!" He declared, duelling with an invisible figure, ducking and weaving. To Kaishi's amateur eyes, he looked pretty good. Maybe she should have spent some time physically training too.

Suddenly, she was panicking – she'd been so focussed on the chakra part of the exam, she'd forgotten all the athletic bits that went into a ninja's work!

Sakura didn't look too impressed by Naruto's antics though.

"Do you _really_ think you'll manage to beat a jounin by hitting him?" She said, doubt colouring her tone.

"Sure. He's only, like, half a jounin anyway." He said confidently, holding a hand over his face to cover his eye.

Sakura just shook her head.

"How about you, Sasuke-kun?"

Kaishi tried to banish her doubts – it was too late to worry about any of that stuff now. Their teacher would be here any second and then he'd beat her to a pulp and made genin-sushi out of her and she just had to accept that.

"Ah. I looked up a new technique I want to try today." Gods, her voice sounded dead. Although, she supposed it was a good thing in this case; dead was calm, and at least she could _look_ like she knew what she was doing before she turned into fancy Uchiha fertiliser for the training grounds.

"Woah, that's just like Sasuke-kun! Of course, you're so relaxed you're going to try something completely new in our exam."

"Oi, teme, don't get us failed just because you can't keep your head in the game." Naruto whined.

 _Well_. It turns out that the only thing that Kaishi needed to get her up and ready for a fight was Naruto doubting her – or, technically, _Sasuke's_ – abilities.

"Back at you, _dead last_." She snapped back.

"I'm ready to go, emo boy. Come at me!" Naruto planted his sandals firmly into the tight packed earth, looking ready to attack at any moment. It was Sakura who stopped them tearing into each other right there and then.

"STOP IT. Seriously, for ten minutes, can you just _stop fighting?_ We're ninja now; act like it." Sakura hissed.

Naruto and Kaishi pulled up short at the harsh note in her voice, exchanging baffled glances.

Sakura seemed to realise she'd just ordered Sasuke do something, and she immediately clamped her hands over her mouth, shame blooming like a crimson rose against her skin. While she fumed with embarrassment, Naruto blinked once, twice, then shrugged, flopping back on the grass with a loud groan.

"Come oooon, old man sensei!" He yelled at the sky.

Kaishi found herself agreeing with Naruto whole heartely.

 _Come on, Kakashi-sensei. Let's get this over with._

X-X-X

In the end, the 'getting this over with' took three hours and twelve seconds to even get _started_. There were only so many games of 'I spy' that three pre-teens could go through before even Sakura was devolving to her caveman origins. Naruto, in a daring move, had liberated Kaishi of her hitai-ate, avoiding her too-slow swipe. Sakura had taken it upon herself to be Sasuke's knight in shining armour and had launched an all-out attack on Naruto, chasing him around the clearing, barely avoiding crashing head-first into the memorial several times. Of course, Kaishi being too immersed in self-pity and steadily rising panic, Sakura was well and truly outnumbered; Naruto's cloned kept popping in and out of existence, tossing the headband from one side of the clearing to the other. Sakura couldn't bring herself to stoop to using her feminine wiles, such as she might have, on Naruto of all people, so they kept up the exhaustive stale-mate for a good twenty minutes before-

"My, my you kids _are_ full of energy this morning." Kakashi appeared behind Naruto, suddenly and silently, startling him long enough for Sakura's long-arms to finally relieve him of the leaf-plate. Naruto turned on their teacher.

"No fair! Sensei, you startled me!"

Kaishi got up from her perch on a chopped off tree-stump as Kakashi-sensei raised a brow.

"A ninja should always be alert for enemies."

"…it's just Sakura." Naruto mumbled, eyes narrowing. Sakura knocked him over the back of the head.

"Are you saying I'm weak, Naruto!"

"Can I have my headband back?" Kaishi interrupted. Sakura handed the hitai-ate over with barely a blush, as Naruto babbled on.

Without a word, Kakashi-sensei disappeared and appeared on the other side of the group, palming an alarm-clock. He set a time and placed it with great deliberation on the tree-stump Kaishi had been sitting on.

"This clock is set to noon." He pointed, before rummaging in one of his bags and pulling out an object.

"These two bells are your mission. Take them from me before the time runs out." He shook them, and an innocent musical jingle rang across the clearing. Kaishi wasn't fooled – even with so much of his face covered up, Kakashi-sensei had an evil expression on his face that practically screamed 'you're about to fall into my trap and make a fool of yourself and I will take great pleasure in that and also possibly photos". She hated that expression.

"Of course, you need an incentive. There are two bells. The one without a bell at the end will spend lunchtime tied to a stump while the rest eat lunch. A friend of mine even made his famous Super Power Bento."

Kaishi suddenly heard a deep growl and turned to look at Naruto, who already looked like he regretted turning down Kaishi's 'poisoned apple'. She couldn't help but feel sorry for him already (although, maybe she should feel more sorry for herself – out of the three, she was the one most likely to end up playing tree-hugger while Naruto filled his belly).

"Of course, with two bells there will only be two winners. The loser? Will go back to the Academy, _steeped in failure_."

"Aww, I'm sorry, Sasuke." Naruto pouted.

"Don't act like you know I'm going to fail!" She snapped back.

"Um, Kakashi-sensei? If you fail one of us…how are you going to have a three-man team?" Sakura asked. Kakashi blinked, then tilted his head, thinking.

"Hmmm, I think I'll come up with something. Shouldn't you be more worried about the exam, Sakura-chan? Maybe you'll be the one failing." He said, pointedly, as Sakura coloured again.

"Now, everything's allowed; shuriken, kunai, any weapon you want. Come at me with the intent to kill, or you'll be _obliterated_." He spoke the last word with a mournful tune like the clang of a casket. Kaishi gulped.

"Bah! If we come at you with the intent to kill, your creaking joints will totally get in your way, sensei! I'll get you in 30 seconds." Naruto boasted.

Kakashi-sensei gave a long, exaggerated yawn.

"Well, looks like I won't have to worry about blondie. Dead lasts always have big mouths to fit their feet in."

Something seemed to snap in Naruto. It seemed like barely a blink of an eye when Naruto had a blade grasped in one hand and, with a loud yell, launched himself straight at Kakashi-sensei.

"Naru-" Kaishi tried to warn, but it was too late, Naruto was-

Captured, his arm twisted behind his back, the tip of his own kunai resting at the base of his skull.

Kaishi and Sakura stared, awe-struck as Kakashi seemed cool as a frozen-lake, demonstrating his deadly ability to kill, should he wish to. Naruto's face was still twisted into an angry snarl, his arm trembling from trying to escape the jounin's grasp.

"I haven't called start yet, firecracker." Kakashi spoke, his words calm like snakes, slowly slithering through the grass around their feet. The tension racked up a notch.

"But I'll give a _yuu_ for effort. Put that intent into our battle and we'll get serious, no?" His eye closed into a deceptively innocent smile. "Ganbatte."

The air seemed for freeze for a long moment. The steel was back in his face and voice.

"… _START!_ "

 _Oh,_ _ **fuck**_.

X-X-X

The fight ended approximately like it started – with three baffled genin and one unruffled instructor.

Kaishi would like to say the fight started well, but she wasn't that great a liar. As soon as Kakashi-sensei had called their exam-game to start, Kaishi had dashed off to hide, figuring that if they split up, the teacher would have a more difficult time finding them. Now, Kaishi was a veritable champion at hide-and-seek, outwitting her brothers for many frustrating hours on their end of things. Finding? She wasn't so great at that. Thankfully, or perhaps more accurately, regretfully, finding them now was Kakashi-sensei's mission.

Or at least if had been, had Naruto not thrown every single rule of common sense when facing a more powerful enemy right out of the window.

What followed as painful and embarrassing even from where Kaishi was hiding. She winced as Naruto blindly attacked Kakashi-sensei, only to be gracefully rebuffed and redirected, even while Kakashi-sensei's nose was buried in his mysterious book. She groaned for Naruto when he was attacked in turn, the jounin's pitiful attack launching him head-first into the lake. Sakura had revealed herself, yelling for Naruto to get the heck out of doge while he could, but thankfully their teacher seemed preoccupied with Naruto and had ignored the badly-hidden girl.

Kaishi started getting truly worried when Naruto stayed underwater. He wasn't seriously injured, was h-

Ripping from the water came two whirling shuriken, the surprise attack curving and launching itself at Kakashi-sensei's blind side. Kaishi held her breath, waiting-

She blew out a breath as the blades were caught and twirled on one finger without the jounin even taking his eye off the pages before him. A light blush was coating his cheek, and Kaishi suddenly had an idea of what he was reading. It reminded her uncomfortably of the time she's watched one of her parents' unlabelled tapes she'd found in their sock drawer.

She sighed in relief as Naruto suddenly burst from the water, spewing up what looked like half the lake from his lungs. Kakashi-sensei unleashed some cruel taunts that seemed to hit every one of Naruto's buttons. She just kept herself from yelling with excitement as Naruto's army sprang from the lake, sending a great crash of water rippling over the bank. The Naruto's attacked en masse; one jumped on the jounin's back, another launched himself at him as Naruto held Kakashi-sensei immobile and-

Honestly, at this point Kaishi barely knew what was going on. Suddenly Naruto was punching Naruto.

"Kakashi-sensei! Drop the henge, you bastard!" Naruto yelled at his own clone.

 _Oh._ Kaishi realised what was happening, having spent the previous evening researching all the academy techniques. It wasn't a henge Kakashi-sensei was using, but the kawarimi technique. She took her eyes off of the brawl that had started between the Naruto army and scanned the trees, trying to spot a spiky cloud of grey hair. But a jounin never got that far by being sloppy, and her attention was pulled from her search by a loud yelp from Naruto.

The crowd of clones had dispersed but now, for some reason she'd missed, Naruto was hanging upside down from a nearby tree, his body still bouncing with inertia. He was yelling when, casual as anything, Kakashi-sensei popped up out of nowhere, bouncing a bell around in the palm of his hand.

"Think before using a jutsu, or it will be used against you." Kakashi-sensei reprimanded him. Not that Naruto was listening to that or his following words, instead launching into breathless insults instead.

"Goddamnit, Kakashi-bastard. Let me down from here and fight me fair and s-"

"A ninja must be able to read underneath the underneath." Kakashi-sensei carried on, ignoring his cursing student.

Kaishi heard a snigger from somewhere nearby and she turned, catching sight of a flash of pink.

"Sakura!" She hissed, loud enough to catch her attention, but trying to be quiet enough to avoid the notice of the bantering pair below.

"Sasuke-kun. I lost you." Sakura alighted on the branch Kaishi was perched on. She flipped her long hair back, blowing a dangling strand out of her face. Together, they observed the two squabbling ninja.

"Naruto's not doing himself any favours today." Sakura whispered, her observation punctured by a quiet giggle.

"Look, none of us can take him on our own." _Especially not me. Help me, Sakura._ Kaishi wailed in her own mind. Sakura nodded.

"We need to set a trap." Kaishi muttered.

There was a moment of silence.

"I have an idea."

X-X-X

The distant sounds of Naruto getting himself caught up in another trap reached Kaishi's ears as she tied a great log to the side with some rope. If the rope was cut, the tree-trunk would swing free and into whomever was standing in front of it. She backed away from it, straightening the bush in front to try and cover as much with leaves as she could.

"Sasuke-kun, I'm disappointed." Kaishi stumbled back at the voice behind her. Kakashi-sensei like to make a habit of surprising people from behind, the noted. She whirled to face him. He was still toting that garish orange book and his stance was slouched, relaxed.

"Such a childish trap, I can see that coming a mile off." He continued.

"Oh, yeah?" Kaishi jumped and cut the rope, sending the tree-trunk swinging. It forced Kakashi-sensei to jump back, though the bored look never vacated his eye.

 _Now!_

A long moment passed.

A page flipped.

Kaishi released one last prayer before pulling two kunai from her pouch. Paper fluttered from the finger rings as she flung them. Maybe it was pure luck, or maybe it was Sasuke's body remembering the years of training he'd put it through, but the kunai flew straight, burying themselves in the dirt at Kakashi-sensei's feet. Barely a second passed when they exploded, the blast shaking the ground. Kakashi-sensei, of course, wasn't caught in it, instead having to retreat again, forcing him into the middle of a large clearing.

Right into the middle of a large black circle, sousho characters dotted all around like ants around their home hill. The seal trap was huge and sprawling, and Kakashi-sensei landed right in the middle, without noticing anything was off. Just as his feet touched the ground, Kaishi also slammed her hand on the outer circle, palm to the ink, and released the gathering of chakra, lighting the jutsu up.

Light up it did – the circle glowed brightly and suddenly Kakashi-sensei was immobilised, frozen like a statue as he was bathed in the blue light from the glowing characters. Only his black pupil focussed on his student.

Students even, as Sakura emerged from the bushes surrounding the clearing, jogging over to Kaishi, breathing hard, sweat making her brow tacky. She took one look at their teacher, still frozen, then grinned widely, letting out a loud whoop.

"Sasuke, you did it!" Kaishi couldn't help but smile back, the adrenaline firing through her, making her hands tremble.

" _We_ did it. Without your genjutsu hiding the seal trap he would have spotted it a mile off. And you had the idea for the distraction of that first trap so his attention was pulled away while you put him under." She said. Sakura didn't even blush at the great praise.

"Well thank goodness I didn't spot that seal trap a mile off. Otherwise you two would be in a real pickle right now." Came a pleasant voice. Only it didn't come from the seal trap.

The grin slid off their faces as Kaishi and Sakura exchanged horrified glances. The Kakashi-sensei inside the seal gave a wave before disappearing in a poof of smoke.

"Oh no." Sakura whispered.

"Oh _yes_." Kakashi-sense said, as he put his hands on their shoulders.

X-X-X

Naruto was wriggling like a fish out of water against the bonds that tied him to the tree-stump. Neither Kaishi nor Sakura had been tied up, but then, they hadn't tried to pilfer their reward lunch. Sakura was sitting on the grass, her head hanging. Kaishi could practically hear her beating herself up about their failed plan. Kaishi wasn't beating herself up at all – she'd made it until the noon bell without _dying_ which, for a civilian girl with two nights of training, albeit with a very talented body it seemed, was a win in her book.

Still, the look Kakashi-sensei was fixing them with managed to convey both _bored_ and _disappointed_ in equal heavy measures, and Kaishi wasn't really used to disappointing people. She wasn't a daredevil or a troublemaker in her usual life, and teachers had never had a reason to call her up. Even if he'd only been their teacher for, essentially, a few hours, she felt bad for letting him down. Despite his sadistic personality, he'd probably had higher hopes for them to get the bell.

 _Huh. Well, actually none of us got the bell, so…_

"Hmmm. So that was a performance and a half. Some good news- looks like none of you three will be going back to the Academy."

Sakura and Naruto jumped up with excitement.

"WAAAH, REALLY? Ne, ne, we don't have to repeat a year?!" Naruto yelled.

Kaishi didn't get her hopes up. Kakashi-sensei had so far not demonstrated a single benevolent bone in his body, and somehow, she could feel the other shoe hovering with demonic glee.

"Yup. All three of you…should _quit_ as ninja."

 _Aaand, there it is_.


	5. I Crave That Bento

"QUIT! WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, OLD-MAN?" Naruto immediately increased his struggling, suddenly furious.

That peaceful expression had vanished from Kakashi-sensei's face, and instead he was wearing the mask of a demon, his eye hard and cold. He stood like an unbreachable wall against the assault of Naruto's yelling. Out of the corner of her eyes, Kaishi could see Sakura shaking.

Suddenly it hit her – this was her chance. She didn't have to be a ninja! If she dropped out, she could devote her time to finding a solution to her problem without putting her life in danger or living a fake life around Sasuke's friends.

But…

Kaishi's heart pounded as she saw the twisted face of Sakura; her jaw was clenched and her eyes focussed on the ground. Her shoulder shook as she held herself back from crying.

' _I…I guess to make my parents proud of me.'_ She had said.

' _-my dream is to surpass the Hokage! Then everyone in the village will acknowledge my existence!'_ Naruto too. Both of their dreams were caught up in becoming ninja. If she took this chance, if she let down her teammates she was as good as tearing down their hopes for the future, dashing Sakura's aspirations and Naruto's bid for love.

 _And Sasuke? What did you strive for?_

"All of you are just punks, dead beats who don't deserve the title of shinobi." Kakashi-sensei spoke. Kaishi had had enough. She pushed herself up from the ground.

"What the hell! We only just graduated the academy. You're our teacher! You haven't taught us anything, but you already think you can fail us? Naruto and Sakura put their all into this test and you- you're just _spitting on them_ , like our efforts mean _nothing_!" She yelled, all of her mental checks and hang-ups vanishing in the face of that stuck up jounin lording himself over her and her teammates. Kaishi's chest heaved as she breathed hard, glaring at Kakashi-sensei, who stared back, eye unwavering, as though he was staring through her eyes and right into her brain.

"Sasuke…" She turned to see both Sakura and Naruto staring at her, Naruto hanging limp in his bindings, mouth open.

"Individual efforts mean nothing." Kakashi-sensei spoke, each word grave and meaningful, like laws chiselled into rock. "What is one man's talent in the face of an army? What is one woman's intelligence when face with a enemy more mighty by far? Attacking with haste-" He looked at Naruto, "leaving your teammate hanging at the mercy of the enemy," now his gaze moved to Sakura and then fixed back on Kaishi, "even with your pathetic attempt at a joint attack, you forgot about Naruto. I could have killed him and you wouldn't have noticed. Or cared." He added.

Sakura immediately spoke up.

"That's not true! We would have-"

"-been too late. You focussed only on yourselves. That is why you will never become Konoha shinobi."

"B-but…the bells, there were only two. We couldn't have passed this test if-"

"If you had used your brains for a moment and worked together past your immediate wants, you would have passed. But you were selfish. What is the point of a team if half is discarded and disregarded?"

He shifted, barely.

"A team is a cohesive unit. It works as one, as a flawless machine. Broken machines are useless. To let a cog rust is to invite a breakdown of the whole mechanism, and a failure of the objective. Your actions must be above individual interest." All eyes were on Kakashi-sensei as he left the group and moved over to the memorial. In the tense silence, even his quiet words carried, flying along the breeze with the tumbling green leaves around the clearing.

"As a shinobi, you risk your life for the mission, for the village. These names here," He trailed gloved fingers over the etched names, "-are great shinobi loved as heroes by the village."

Naruto suddenly perked up.

"Heh, hey, hey! I'm gonna become a hero too! I'll get my name on that rock, believe it!"

Kaishi dug her arm into Naruto's side.

"Shut up, Naruto. You don't want your name on there."

"Eh? Shaddup, teme. I bet the Hokage's name is on there too-"

"Probably. The Fourth, and the Second, and the First."

Naruto just looked confused.

"Sasuke-kun is right, of course. These people aren't ordinary heroes." Kakashi-sensei said quietly.

"What? What am I missing?"

"Naruto-" Kaishi warned.

Kakashi-sensei turned.

"They're all dead."

Sakura gasped and Naruto jerked against the tree-stump.

"All these shinobi died in the line of duty; they gave their lives for their village. On this memorial, my best friend's name is carved. There are more names on this stone that I recognise than I can count on my hands. This is the true meaning of the shinobi life – one day you give up everything you love, your dreams, your family, every second of your future, because it is necessary, to save everyone else. Only the true heroes, the selfless, are memorialised in the heart of the village."

Kaishi felt her heart thunder in her chest like the drums in the orchestra. Even Naruto was quiet now, Kakashi-sensei's grave revelation sewing his lips shut.

"Now. Consider this perspective. You will get another chance. But be warned – after lunch, the bells will be even more difficult to take."

Kaishi heard two twin sighs of relief from her teammates, and even her rabbit heart was slowing down. _Another chance!_

"If you feel like you can take another go, you can sit here and eat lunch. However, giving food to Naruto is forbidden!"

"Huh?"

"Naruto tried to eat my friend's lunches all by himself, so he is being punished. If you do give him food…you will fail. _Immediately_." With that last foreboding word, he left, faster than Kaishi could see where he went. The clearing was once again doused in silence. Naruto slumped against the tree-stump as Sakura and Kaishi looked at each other, then Naruto, then the two bento boxes sitting on the ground.

"Well…he didn't say you had to stay tied up, anyway." Sakura mentioned, going to untie the rope. With a dry rustle, it fell to the floor – Naruto stretched his arms above his head and gave a fake-sounding yawn.

"Bah! I don't even need any food. I'm fine!" He pronounced, but his cheerful tone rang hollow, especially when punctuated by his stomach giving a regretful growl. Naruto slumped against the stump, despondent, as he slid down it and sat cross-legged.

Sakura bit her lip as she glanced at the pitiful form. She looked back at the bento, then to Naruto again, who seemed focussed on staunchly ignoring them. She gave a loud, put out sigh and then shoved her bento box at Naruto.

"Sakura-" Kaishi said, warning in her tone, but Sakura stayed firm.

"Naruto. It's like Sasuke-kun said, we all need to put effort in in the next round so we can achieve our dreams. So you should eat."

Naruto looked longingly at the food and made to reach for it.

Kaishi was faster though and covered it with her hand.

"Don't. Naruto, Sakura – aren't your- _our_ dreams worth more than one lunch? I know it's uncomfortable, but we've all gone without food for this long, right?"

She faced two put our glares, and held her arms out in a 'so what' gesture.

"I know you're hungry, Naruto – and I won't say 'I told you so' about the apple this morning-," Naruto growled at that, "-but do _you_ want to risk being expelled from this second chance just because you ate the bento?"

Naruto's stomach gave another growl, but his longing gaze at the packed rice, slowly turned into a look filled with determination.

"This isn't because you said it, teme! But I'm not hungry. I don't like…white, fluffy, moist rice any…way…".

With one last long look, he turned his face away, holding his nose to block out the smell of food. Sakura now held the orange and green boxed bento with a guilty look on her face.

"Here – how about we don't eat either? It's like, solidarity or something." Kaishi proposed. Sakura perked up and nodded. They stacked the bento boxes and pushed them to the side, sitting down to wait for the lunchtime to be over.

"So…anyone want to play 'I-spy'?"

Kaishi groaned.

X-X-X

Half-an-hour passed by slowly, followed by another half-an-hour, this time crawling by at a sloth-like pace. As another half-an-hour began its sluggish progress, all three stomachs were growling, but none of the genin made a pass at the tantalizing lunch-boxes.

"This is ridiculous, how long does he think we'll take eating lunch?" Sakura grumbled.

"I'm so bo-"

Naruto's whinging was cut off by the appearance of their erstwhile teacher, who loomed over them with a threatening aura.

"So you're still not taking this seriously? What is even the point in a second chance if you're going to be half-starved the whole time?" Kakashi-sensei ground out, eye flashing with deadly irritation. Kaishi backed away, while Sakura's knees started trembling. Even Naruto looked taken aback.

"W-we _are_ taking this seriously. W-we're going to work as a t-team. An equal t-team."

Sakura stuttered out. Kakashi-sensei turned his flashing eye on her.

" _Pathetic_." He spat again.

They'd been idiots for refusing the food; of course they had been. Now Kakashi-sensei would throw them out because they didn't even have the common sense to build up energy for the fight-

"-but it's something I can work with."

The heavy atmosphere had disappeared like it had never been there, and Kakashi-sensei was back to the relaxed, lazy-eyed slouch he'd sported the first time they'd met. Kaishi blinked confusedly, seeing a similar reaction echoed in Sakura and Naruto.

"…work with?"

"You said so yourself, Sasuke-kun. A teacher is for teaching students."

"Teacher…you mean-"

"You pass." Kakashi-sensei proclaimed, his eye curving up into a masked smile. Naruto furrowed his brow.

"Eto…we haven't even got any of the bells yet."

"Wait… _this_ was our second chance, wasn't it?" Sakura suddenly said. Kaishi and Naruto continued to make confused noises, while Kakashi-sensei seemed to urge her on with one raised eyebrow.

"You were…talking about being selfless in a team. But by letting _us_ eat while Naruto couldn't, just because you ordered us to, would mean that we were putting our own needs above our team's again."

"My, my, you are a clever one, Sakura-chan. Of course, this wasn't _exactly_ how I thought it would go – I surely expected Sasuke-kun or Sakura-chan to offer their bentos to Naruto regardless of what I ordered."

"So why-"

"Maaah, your way was different, but you still showed a priority of your team over yourselves. Sakura-chan showed a willingness to break the rules to help a teammate in need, but Sasuke-kun also showed that sometimes a tough choice must be made to make it to the end goal, or in your case, to make it to your dreams. He demonstrated an awareness of the importance of everyone's goals, not just his own, and that they are more important than a singular moment of discomfort. Besides, the abstinence at the end was a nice touch." He smiled at the shocked faces of his new pupils.

"Those who disregard the needs of their teammates…they are worse than _trash_." Kakashi-sensei said with a note of ultimate finality in his voice.

Naruto seemed star-struck as he stared up at the jounin in awe. Sakura recovered from the emotional whiplash with a sudden loud 'WHOOP' as she grinned from ear to ear. Her joy was infectious and Kaishi couldn't help the smile the bloomed on her lips too.

"Your first mission was a success – from now on, you've all passed on to Team 7! First training session is tomorrow. Yosh!" He posed, one thumb stuck in the air.

That proclamation seemed to burst the damn, and Naruto sprang into action. He, too, sported a giant grin, and couldn't contain his glee enough to stop his hop-dance he was making. He could only yell with happiness.

"WHOO! YEAH! I DID IT! NINJA! NINJA! WHOO! HOKAGE HERE I COME!"

Kaishi watched him, the smile still pinching her cheeks. She looked to the happy Sakura, so different from the blushing, self-conscious girl she'd been most of the time they were together, then at their new sensei, who watched over all of them with a bemused glint in his eye.

 _So this is it. I'm a ninja now. There's no going back now. Uchiha Sasuke, you had better be worth it._


End file.
